


Healing Wounds

by RacheTanz



Category: Sam & Max
Genre: (also a mild facet of the story this is just a just-in-case warning), Flint Paper makes a guest appearance, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Language, Morbid Humor, Sharing a Bed, Sybil Pandemik makes a guest appearance, and she is not very happy about it, but this does so fair warning, by gays for gays, deals with my own personal headcanons abt what happened in past-Max's reality, i take a few pot-shots at Florida but i have to live here so im allowed, im aware canon doesn't typically have 'permanent' violence or blood, im worried about sam, max cares about sam in his own weird way, mentions of suicidal ideation, mutual pining of sorts, slightly more violent than canon, so i suppose this is an AU of some sort given no details've been canonically confirmed (yet?), suggestion of disordered eating (mild facet of the story but ill warn just in case), well...kind of. as comforting as either of these two goofballs can be, working through trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-03-19 12:39:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18969469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RacheTanz/pseuds/RacheTanz
Summary: Things have been going smoothly for them for a while now, all things considered. But when Sam breaks his arm on an especially-dangerous mission, a lot of old wounds resurface, particularly for Max, who has no idea how to deal with them. Tensions rise and it’s unclear if their partnership will survive the issues...





	1. The Incident

**Author's Note:**

> ello this is my first attempt at a multi-chapter upload on here so im sorry if the formatting gets weird, im not very good at this !  
> and ill be adding more relevant tags as i go. i dont know how many chapters this'll be yet, but probably not too many. maybe 10? 10 sounds like a nice round number. i'm shootin' for 10. enjoy!

Things have gone completely sideways, upside-down, south, all the possible bad ways they could go. Usually, that was what made things fun, but today it’s just bad for their blood pressure. Particularly when their absurdly-garbed villain-du-jour punts Max to the opposite side of the room like a shark-toothed soccer ball—that level of disrespect makes Sam’s blood boil and, without thinking, he rushes forward with an embarrassingly animalistic snarl, lifting his gun with the intent to smash it against this jerk’s head. Unfortunately he never saw the villain’s toolbelt or what was on it, hidden by their obnoxious overdramatic cape, and he severely underestimates their speed, as well.

The hammer strikes Sam’s shooting arm before he can maneuver out of the way, and the sickening crunch that ensues almost drowns out the immediate sharp pain, nauseating, a strange sort of burning sensation on the inside but a deathly cold on the outside. He reels back with a yelp, arm now limp and flopping at his side—knocking it into his torso sends another jolt of pain seemingly throughout his entire body—as his revolver falls to the floor with the loud sound of metal on concrete. The hammer rises again as he stumbles back almost desperately, panicking now, but before it can hit him again a blinding blur of white slams into his assailant. It takes him a second to register that the ungodly screech he’s hearing is coming from said white blur, who is now, most definitely, going to murder this villain, if the questionable red fluid splashing slightly through the air is anything to go by. Time for Sam to do his job as the resident level-headed dog of the team; keeping his injured arm as still as he can, he uses his other to grab Max by the ears to pluck him off the villain. “Max, **no** —You’ll kill him!”

“I don’t care!” Max yells in a strangely gruff tone, thrashing around, and Sam drops him with a yowl when an errant foot strikes his broken arm. The pain is bad enough that his knees and lungs give out and he falls on his ass as well, gasping and clutching at it. That catches Max’s attention. “Shit, Sam, are you okay?” He sits up straighter, eyes wide.

“I think my arm is broken,” Sam whines pitifully, squeezing his eyes shut and grinding his teeth. “Pretty bad, too.” He takes a few deep breaths to try and ignore the pain. Max stands up, frozen for a moment. Sam is hunched over his arm, still whining in the back of his throat, and all the lagomorph can think is, _The asshole lying unconscious behind me is the one who did this. He hurt Sam, he could’ve_ **_killed_ ** _Sam_. The blood-boiling anger rises again and he grinds his teeth, turning around, but Sam lifts his head and says sharply, “Max, _don’t_. The Freelance Police _aren’t_ supposed to kill people.”

He sounds the same as when he’d admonish Max for biting the classmates who bullied him when they were kids. It’s not something the lagomorph wanted to remember in this context but the comparison’s risen and it won’t go away; the anger now is just the same as it was then, but stronger: a strange sort of protective, _possessive_ rage. Max clenches his fists so hard his arms shake, but he turns back to Sam, who gives him what’s meant to be a reassuring smile. It’s much more pinched and wobbly than his usual grin and Max has to _really_ fight back a second tide of anger. All he can think about is how familiar that wavering smile is and how many times he’d gladly gotten detention for fighting his battles. Somewhere along the lines, that ended up translating into being willing to murder for him, too. “ **Fine**.” He manages, sounding much more curt than he’d ever want to be to Sam; he wipes off some of the blood staining his knuckles on his chest, then looks around. Times like these, he really wishes either of them carried a phone. “Don’t move, there’s bound to be **something** we can use as a splint…”

“Neither of us knows how to do that, Max.” The dog points out, shifting a bit. “We’d be better off getting back to the DeSoto instead.”

There’s a pause wherein Max wants to insist they try something, but he can’t think of anything, and Sam is right (as he usually is)—they’d be better off driving somewhere they can get help. “Alright,” Max relents, still fuming a little, “I’ll cuff the guy and we’ll drop him off after we hit up a hospital.”

Sam stands, wincing, and in a flash Max is right next to him with a small but strong hand of support. “Thanks, little buddy,” Sam smiles down at him, but Max can’t seem to return the gesture like usual, earning a raised eyebrow from his partner, but before a comment could be made the lagomorph whirls around, withdrawing a pair of cuffs from who-knows-where, stomping over to their villain.

He drags the villain, with extreme prejudice, back to the DeSoto, Sam trailing behind almost nervously. Max drags the man facedown, gravel likely getting lodged up his nose and in his eyes, leaving a trail of blood behind him that Sam takes care _not_ to step in; Max doesn’t even glance back, silently fuming. It’s a little petty to scrape the bad-guy along the floor facefirst, and it’s hardly sporting when they’re already unconscious, but he’s pissed enough that it doesn’t matter. If Sam won’t let him kill this one (which is fair, he supposes), he can at least make the recovery even more miserable. When they reach the DeSoto, Max unceremoniously flings the guy into the backseat, then springs in front of Sam as the dog is about to step over to the driver’s side door. “Like _hell_ am I gonna let you drive with a _broken arm_.”

“I don’t really want to be shrieking like a grandma in a horror movie all the way there, little pal,” Sam replies, bemused, but his smile falls when Max, in a shockingly authoritative display, glares up at him and silently points to the passenger side of the car. Sam winces, then drags his feet as he plods to the passenger door, acting like he’s been smacked on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Metaphorically speaking, he has, to be honest—Max has _never_ been this angry at him before and it’s upsetting—but he clambers into their car anyways, grimacing any time his arm moves. He isn’t paying attention, too fixated on the pain, but Max is watching him with wide eyes, visibly upset. He blinks it away before Sam can notice, shoving the key in the ignition, which he’d pilfered out of Sam’s Inventory earlier, meaning to make a joke out of it after the fight. The engine starts and Max does his best to drive carefully, using the cinderblock they keep under the passenger seat to keep the car moving while he stands on the seat, steering as best he can at top speed. He stares at the road ahead like it owes him money and is trying to beg for more time even as he raises a knife to its neck, sharply focused.

It’s way too quiet, other than the roar of the engine. The air is weird and tense and yet somehow kinda familiar, but not in a pleasant way. It reminds Sam of sleepless nights and rain and neon lights and…

“I never figured you’d be so protective of _me_ , little buddy,” Sam quips without really thinking, trying to lighten the mood a little.

Max glares down at the steering wheel, gritting his teeth for a second. “You don’t know the half of it,” he murmurs just loud enough for Sam to hear. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s said it aloud, though, and Sam can’t think of a response in the time between that muttered confession and him lightly returning the banter, “Well, _somebody’s_ gotta drive me places, Sam. Can’t drive if you’re _dead_!”

Still caught a little off-guard, Sam chuckles hollowly, staring at Max almost warily, then tries for humor again. “I wonder if that’s why we’ve never seen zombies driving around.”

Finally Max cracks a more genuine smile. “Maybe. I don’t remember you having trouble driving when _we_ were zombies, though.”

“Yeah, but that’s _us_.” Sam relaxes a little. “The only laws that apply to _us_ are the convenient ones.”

“Good point.” Max turns right, doing his best to not crash into anything. His unusual mindfulness is pretty unnerving and Sam has to restrain himself from saying _jeez, Max, it’s just a broken arm,_  because somehow he feels like maybe it’s _not_ just a broken arm to his partner. He has no idea what else it could be, but he’d rather not ask. Some part of him is a little afraid of the answer.

* * *

The hospital trip is less eventful than they’d thought it would be. Sam manages to convince the staff to let him go after they’ve put the cast on despite his other injuries—which was not nearly so difficult given the amount of yelling he’d done when they’d had to take off his jacket and shirt to even get at the arm. He’d always been a bit of a weenie (Max could testify) and the hospital staff were definitely not pleased to be dealing with a rather strong six-foot-tall dog with the pain tolerance of a five-year-old, and they were even _less_ pleased to deal with the sharp-toothed lagomorph who refused to leave his side, though they did appreciate that him holding the dog’s hand made him shut up for a minute when they were working on re-setting the bone.

He’s still a bit loopy from the painkillers they’d given him in a vain attempt to make him quiet down a little, so Max drives them home, seeming a lot calmer than on their way there. Sam tries to insist on sticking his head out the window, but Max adamantly refuses, not entirely sure his partner wouldn’t flop out onto the road. The lagomorph has already had one heart attack relating to Sam’s wellbeing tonight, and he’s not keen on a second.

“C’mon, Max, stop bein’ so…” he searches through the brain-fog of fatigue on possibly-illegal painkillers for the right word for a second before settling on the rather ill-fitting, “fussy. It’s weird!” Sam gripes, though he’s not as annoyed as he’s pretending to be.

Max stifles a sigh, gripping the steering wheel. It had been night when they’d gone out, but now dawn is beginning to bleed over the horizon, and he’s too damn tired to deal with a whiny dog who he cares way too much about but is too much of a coward to inform of that fact.  “You’re not allowed to die before I do, Sam!” He says in a fake cheerful tone, “I’m supposed to drag you down with me, remember? And it better be _exciting_!”

Sam shuts his mouth, thinking for a moment. Was that why Max was being so weird? He’d never really considered the lagomorph to be particularly soft-hearted; most of the time, he’d laugh when Sam got hurt, or just seemed unfazed entirely... Or was the one who was hurting Sam, out of what he claimed was some kind of affection. Not like Sam hated that or anything, but that’s a, er, another issue. “Whatever you say, little buddy,” he answers kindly, leaning back a little in his seat (though he keeps a stern grip on the dashboard with his free hand). He feels oddly touched. It’s sweet that Max would rather die first, but it’s a little uncomfortable to remember how that technically happened once.

They skid to a halt in front of their house, and Sam hops out easily, keeping his arm close to him despite the cast and sling effectively doing that for him. The neighbors were likely asleep long ago, though the DeSoto’s screeching tires would be a lovely alarm clock to the entire neighborhood. They don’t much care, of course; the odd hours of their job often put their working schedule (or, really, lack thereof) at odds with the neighbors’, so they’ve barely talked outside barbecues they were grudgingly invited to and only occasionally could attend. Those usually ended… poorly.

Their morning—it still feels like evening to them—is a return to some semblance of normalcy, after Max helps Sam haphazardly patch himself up; Sam trying to brush his teeth with his non-dominant hand ends up a hilarious mess, and Max almost chokes on his toothbrush with hyena laughter when the dog finally gives up, glaring at his toothpaste-covered muzzle with an irritated sigh. He rinses off his face as Max finally recovers enough to wheeze, “Gee, Sam, you could be a dead ringer for doggy Santa Claus!”

“Shaddup, or I’ll use _you_ as a hand-towel,” Sam snaps, but there’s a smirk on his face.

Max springs off the stool he uses to reach the sink and giggles. “You’d have to catch me, first!” He hops out of the bathroom cheerfully, headed for the living room to wait for Sam to be done getting dressed for bed.

The lagomorph flops down on the couch, clicking the television on. It’s six in the morning now, he’s damned exhausted, but morning cartoons might be starting soon. That’ll keep him occupied for a little while, he figures, setting the remote down on his stomach as he stares with bleary eyes. The weight of the night is finally truly setting in—their lives are usually a wonderful action-packed whirlwind, but this is the first time in a long time that they needed to go to the hospital for anything other than something they did to a suspect. He’s more than a little surprised at himself, too; he looks down at his hands even though he rinsed the blood off before brushing his teeth. His knuckles hurt a little, pinkish in colour even through his fur (likely pretty bruised, but hey, Sam doesn’t need to know that), but he hadn’t even noticed, too concerned with Sam’s arm. At least nothing _worse_ happened. A little shiver runs up his spine as he thinks about what might have happened if Sam hadn’t flung his arm up—that asshole had been aiming for the dog’s head, after all. And he hit hard enough to break bones…

The door to the bathroom creaks open, yanking Max from his frankly very unnerving thoughts, and he turns to look, puzzled.

“I… don’t think I can get this shirt sleeve off, it’s stuck,” Sam admits, standing sheepishly in the bathroom doorway, haloed by the flickery yellow light behind it. He’s already wearing his pajama pants, and his shirt is unbuttoned and off of the other arm, but it’s a little tangled around the cast.

Max sighs and slides off the couch, trotting over. He’s not frustrated, just tired and a little emotionally-fried. The adrenaline and anger melted away when they flung their perp out of the car at the police station, replaced by a relieved melancholy of sorts. “Here,” he says in an uncharacteristically gentle tone, “Allow me…” Sam sits down on the little stool they keep in there for Max to more easily reach the sink, then glances away when his partner gets close. He feels pretty exposed without a shirt on (hell, he even feels out-of-place in just a short-sleeved shirt) given that his figure is, as he usually says, not the best it could be. Max doesn’t seem to care, or maybe he’s just politely not looking, but either way, he carefully slides his hands along the cast to figure out where in the sleeve it’s getting caught. The snag is at a weird angle, one Sam probably couldn’t’ve figured out on his own without a lot of frustration given he's clearly a bit sore from the fight, but Max can get at it easily with his little paws. “Does it still hurt?”

“Not really. At least, not right now. I hope it won’t hurt in the morning. Er, evening.” Sam scratches his nose with his free hand, still not looking at Max as the lagomorph straightens out the sleeve before sliding it off. “Guess you’re going to have to do the sharp-shooting for a little while, pal.”

Max hums, but doesn’t seem quite so happy about that. He loves shooting things, sure, but it’s not quite the same without Sam by his side, doing it too. “Sam, how long do broken arms take to heal?” He drops the shirt unceremoniously on the ground, eyeing his partner, who still seems too… shy? anxious? to look at him.

“Thanks, little buddy. I don’t know, really, maybe a couple months? That’s when they said to come back.” Sam moves to pick up his pajama shirt, still sitting on the floor, and shrugs it on his good arm before turning to try and wrestle with the bad one.

Without really thinking, Max grabs the sleeve of the shirt and starts to help him put it on. “Ooh, is your arm gonna be all weird and wrinkly? Or does that only happen to humans?”

“I think maybe the fur will be paler and a little flat, but that’s probably about it.” Sam chooses not to address the strangeness that is Max trying to help him put on a shirt. He also does his best not to think about the fact that they’re definitely going to be doing this nearly every day for the next month at least.

“Aw, that’s _boring_.” Max replies, still grinning, as he tugs the end of the sleeve to smooth out any wrinkles.

Sam chuckles and reaches to start buttoning his nightshirt, which he abruptly realizes is going to be a little difficult—he’s not used to the cast at all, and it does limit the bend-ability of a couple of his fingers, which is important when you’ve only got four of ’em. Three, if thumbs don’t count. Taking off the last one had been tough enough, but maneuvering the buttons into the holes would be time-consuming. He’s content to just struggle with it alone when suddenly Max reaches toward his neck, and his instinctively flinches back, not sure if the lagomorph is about to start an ill-timed wrestling match. He starts to protest, “Max, what—” but stops himself when he realizes his partner has just decided to start buttoning the shirt for him as well. A little embarrassed, he huffs, “You don’t have to button my shirt for me like I’m some _kid_.”

“I’m tired and I wanna go to _bed_ already, ya big lug,” Max snaps a little harshly in response, but Sam knows he doesn’t really mean it, he’s just matching Sam’s brattiness. “The faster you put a damn shirt on, the faster we can go to sleep.”

At that, Sam decides to shut his mouth and they work together on it. He tries to ignore the invasion of his personal space to the best of his ability—while he usually doesn’t mind Max getting up in his face, this prolonged exposure is kinda weird. To his credit, Max seems aware of this, too, and leaves the last three buttons for Sam to do on his own, hopping back and then up onto the kitchen sink to pick at his teeth without any comment. A weird sort of tension had settled, but once Sam finishes up those last three buttons and swats Max off the sink (he _knows_ he’s not supposed to put his big dirty feet on it, dammit), it’s gone and he thinks nothing of it. They then plod to their shared bedroom, where Max quickly springs for the top bunk. Sam smiles as he watches the lagomorph scramble up the ladder with an amusing amount of vigor for someone who’d been griping about being tired, before walking over to the bottom bunk, kicking over some rubbish on his way. He settles down in his bunk with a little groan, exhausted. It’s been one helluva day. Pretty much the instant his head hits the pillow, he’s snoring.

Max, however, is not so lucky, despite his exhaustion. He’s curled in a ball around his pillow, staring at the wall; falling asleep has always been a bit of a trial for him. He tends to just go until he drops, wherever that may be, no sense of schedule, so now that he has a moment truly to himself he’s just still a little too adrenalized to pass out. Instead, he decides to sit up, stare at the ceiling for a second, then slide down the ladder of his bunk and plod to the window. He’s often seen Sam staring out the window, and in the past he’d never really understood his partner’s penchant for self-reflection—particularly since it seemed to really get to him sometimes, leading him into a little spiral of self-deprecation, which Max hated to see (even if he’d never openly say so)—but lately the idea’s made a bit more sense, grown to have a bit of appeal. He leans against the windowsill, propping his head up on his crossed arms, swinging one leg aimlessly back and forth but taking care not to kick the wall, more out of concern for waking Sam up than doing any damage. The poor guy deserves some shut-eye after the night they’ve had, and Max would rather not deal with a grumpy dog. He growls a lot and it’s almost something _frightening_ when directed at him, entertaining though it may be when directed at virtually anyone else.

As if on cue, he hears a very sleepy growl to his left, where the bed is. He turns, curious, to see his partner twitch slightly in his sleep, and he sneers a little bit, bemused. He’s always done that when he sleeps, and the funniest thing Max ever saw was Sam barking loud enough to wake himself up one night. He’d looked so hilariously, adorably confused, entirely unaware that that was what had woken him up, and Max was cackling too hard to tell him. Sam only ever barked when he was sleeping, for whatever mysterious reason. The lagomorph leans back from the window to loom over his partner instead, shutting the blinds with one hand to keep the growing dawn light from bothering Sam. “What’cha dreamin’ about, Sam?” he hisses, trying to start a conversation without waking the dog up. Sam mumbles unintelligibly, and Max leans a little further forward. “What?”

“—On fire,” he mutters.

“What’s on fire?” Intrigued, Max tilts his head to one side.

Sam furrows his brow. “No.”

“No?” He restrains a giggle.

More unintelligible mumbling, and Max crawls over the head of the bed to crouch like a gremlin next to his partner’s pillow, careful not to shake the bed. “... know he’s still in there, just gimme a…” He cuts himself off with a growl, grimacing, and now the amusement has faded to a mild concern. Whatever he’s dreaming about doesn’t seem as fun as arson.

Max gently reaches over and pats Sam on the head. “Shh, relax, big guy. It’s just a dream, shut up already.” He means it kindly, in his own way.

Sam jolts slightly with a little grunt, half-opening his eyes. “Max?”

“Go back to sleep,” the lagomorph puts his hand over Sam’s eyes.

Usually that’d just piss him off, but he’s tired enough that he just mumbles something else that Max can’t decipher and sinks back into his pillow again. The lagomorph takes his hand away with a grin, then moves to crawl over Sam and out of the bed when the dog suddenly drapes his good arm over Max and sleepily slurs out, “Don’t go anywhere, Max.”

“Jeez, Sam, you’re gettin’ all _clingy_ on me.” Max teases lightly. Oh, Sam is going to be embarrassed as hell about this in the morning, but that doesn’t mean Max won’t take full advantage of this opportunity while it’s here. He lets the weight of Sam’s arm drag him down.

“I know.” The dog yawns, eyes still closed. He’s snoring again almost immediately afterwards, and Max wriggles a little bit to lie on his side, looking up at his partner with an amused grin. Sam definitely won’t remember any of this, but at least he seems less distressed about whatever that was. Hell, given the way Max’s brain is, he won’t remember either, but he couldn’t care less.


	2. The Day After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u all for the really nice comments !! im not good at expressing gratitude in comments, i feel like i always repeat myself, but i really do appreciate them so very much ! (the irony of having writing as a hobby and bein unable to express yerself--)  
> also i'd forgotten to mention bc im big stupid but the name of this fic is cred to felix.rodent on Instagram. im bad at naming things and my followers there helped me out lol  
> anyhow this chapter's a lil shorter than the last one and a lil more scattered, and i think the rest will turn out similarly, so, uh, hope that's alright. enjoy !

Sam wakes up to a weight on his chest and late-afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window; easing his eyes open, he sees Max sitting on his chest, back to him, cast in one hand and a Sharpie in the other. Sam stays still for a second, his sleep-addled brain still confused, until he sees Max scribbling on part of the cast. “What are you doing, buckethead?” Sam asks sleepily, not putting two and two together.

Max starts and his ears shoot up adorably, then he twists and grins at his partner, lifting up his handiwork proudly. His name is scrawled across the cast in large unsteady handwriting, with a little scribble-ball near the X, like he’d made a mistake, somehow. “Nobody else was gonna get to be the first one to sign your cast!” He proclaims. “ _Obviously_ that honor goes to **me**.”

“Of course. But why while I was sleeping?” Sam starts to sit up; Max caps the Sharpie and rolls off of him, chucking it across the room. It skitters with an appreciable loudness across the hardwood floor before sliding right into an old shirt of Sam’s, sitting in a lump by the closet.

“You were pretty still, and besides, it’s not like you were doing anything important!” He chirps as his partner yawns. _Can’t argue with that_ , Sam silently reasons, rubbing his eyes with his good hand before getting up.

…And of course, the dog was not made aware of what had happened earlier in the day, and clearly didn’t remember it, either; Max woke up earlier than Sam, and nabbed the marker as a convenient excuse to spare any embarrassment, or explain why he hadn’t writhed out of the dog’s grip as would be expected of him. Can’t have Sam thinking Max really does love him. Or vice-versa.

This ‘morning’—technically almost evening—they don’t fight over the shower; Max just lets Sam go first, content instead to start a pot of coffee (which Sam usually wouldn’t trust him with) while his partner tries to figure out how to shower without getting the cast wet. He manages it with little issue, and, too lazy to dry his fur very much (it’s late enough that the commissioner might not call them—and maybe he won’t for the next couple days, having been made aware of yesterday’s debacle) or figure out how to put a shirt on over the cast, he wanders into the kitchen without a shirt on, just his slacks. To his surprise, the kitchen is only slightly more a mess than normal, and Max proudly presents him with a steaming cup of coffee, grinning ear to ear. “Thanks, little buddy,” Sam tries to pat him on the head with his broken arm, with only a little bit of success. He takes a sip as Max springs onto the counter, not noticing the lagomorph watching him intently. It’s a good cup of coffee—Max knows exactly what he likes, after all—and he smiles. “Good job.” He turns his attention to his partner as he sets down the mug and pats him properly now, earning an even bigger smile somehow.

“Thanks! I managed **not** to set anything on fire, too.”

“I’m proud of you,” Sam snorts, picking up a box of cereal. He peers inside, verifying they hadn’t eaten all of its contents and just been too lazy to throw it out, then tucks it under his arm. “Let’s see if it’s late enough to catch something decent on TV.”

The phone rings halfway through their breakfast, and the ensuing scuffle ends with Max pinned under Sam’s broken arm—the cast, it turns out, makes for a solid bludgeon in a pinch, even if that does hurt a little bit—between his elbow and his side. He stops flailing around after a minute, realizing that even though Sam doesn’t have his shirt on, he’s not any easier to escape from, and resigns himself to definitely _not_ appreciating the softness of his partner’s fur. It beats the somewhat-scratchy material of his suit, in any case, even if the cast squashed into his cheek is a worse rough scratchiness.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh… ya don’t say! … Why, I _never—_! … Holy tap-dancing tardigrades in the river Thames! We’re on our way!” With that, the phone is slammed back down onto the receiver with a loud and satisfying clack.

“Was that the Commissioner?” Max inquires more out of respect for tradition than real curiosity.

“Indeed it was, Max, and we’ve got another exciting, hair-raising case!” Sam hefts Max up and into his uninjured arm, holding him more properly, a pleasant surprise for the lagomorph. “We’ve gotta get going, ASAP!”

“You don’t even have a shirt on,” Max observes flatly, and Sam looks down as if he’d forgotten. In that moment, Max wishes he hadn’t pointed it out; his partner’s face falls for a second when looking at himself before he can hide it with his signature sunny grin.

“Alright, we’ve gotta get going as soon as I get a shirt on.” He drops Max to the floor before hustling off. “Don’t go anywhere!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Sam.” Max mumbles, rubbing his back and grimacing a bit at his minor faux pas.

* * *

“Tell me what he said!” Max demands, tugging at his partner’s shirt. Sam’s head is angled away from him, peering around one floppy ear to see the road, but he glances down with a small smile. “Come **onnnnn**!”

“According to the Commissioner,” Sam begins like he usually does, and Max beams up at him, beyond excited, “we’re meant to stop a cabal of hyper-intelligent dolphin-people hailing from the deep sea who are **hell-bent** on taking over Florida, and making it even **more** of an absurdist nightmare than it normally is. Naturally, it’s expected that we employ our usual amount of gratuitous violence.”

“Why do we have to save _Florida_?” Max wrinkles his nose.

“Some people live there, sometimes. Besides, maybe we’ll get passes to Disney or something out of it!” Sam swerves to the wrong side of the road briefly in an attempt to avoid running over what appeared to be a bagpipe in the middle of the street.

“Ooh, you know, I’d _love_ to spend an obscene amount of money on a hat that’s actually shaped like my head for once.”

“You crack me up, little buddy.” Sam takes a hard right and Max flops over, caught off-guard, clinging to his shirt a bit tighter for a moment. “It’s gonna be a bit of a long trip down to Florida from New York, but luckily, we can just breeze through it by ending this conversation now that the exposition is over.”

When they get to Florida, they have to put the top back up, much to their dismay; a torrential downpour is underway, and Max glares in an accusatory manner out the window at it. “I thought this was supposed to be the _sunshine_ state.” He gripes.

“It should stop raining in fifteen minutes,” Sam replies, activating the windshield wipers, “and then it’ll start up again.”

“Did the dolphins do this?” Mex peers upward curiously, looking at the sky as best he can without rolling the windows down.

Sam suddenly remembers that windshield wipers exist, and activates the DeSoto’s. No wonder it was so hard to see before! At least they didn’t hit anything… well, anything important. “No, this is just how Florida is.”

“I hate it.”

“Most people do. Did you know nearly **everyone** here drives as insanely as we do?” Sam comments, and as if sent by some otherworldly force to prove his point, the driver to their left abruptly speeds up to dive in front of them, then slow down to avoid hitting the car ahead of them, effectively wedging a car in a space most definitely not quite big enough for it.

“We’ll just have to drive twice as insanely, to establish dominance!” Max declares even as Sam slams on the brakes, nearly catapulting the rabbit out of the front window. Were it not for his quick reflexes, Max would have at least smacked his nose on the windshield if not crashed through it, but he sticks an arm out onto the dash to stop himself. Sam’s broken arm prevents him from employing the arm-seatbelt he usually does, which, he abruptly realizes, is going to be a problem.

“Let’s not, little buddy.”

* * *

 Sam really hates these water-based missions. Especially when they have to go in without SCUBA gear. Double-especially when things fall apart and the duo end up separated. He stands in a little airlocked room, having been outwitted by a dolphin—a damn zoo dolphin, not even an anthropomorphic creature like himself—and locked in with no clear or unclear escape route, looking down as the water rises to his hips. This is bad. This is really quite bad. He’s not supposed to get his cast wet _and_ he can’t stand the thought of drowning. It’s Hugh Bliss’s stupid water tank all over again only this time he most definitely can’t paddle to keep his head above water. Max is… well, who knows where Max ended up? His complete lack of impulse control and Sam’s new blind side (so to speak—his broken arm can’t snap out to snag the lagomorph and stop him in his tracks) combined together such that the moment things got a little hectic, his fuzzy little buddy was nowhere to be seen, and he couldn’t find Max either.

He’s starting to kinda sorta maybe panic a little as he looks around the room. The water level is rising fast and he’s sure those jerks are having a great laugh about it, too (or they’re doing whatever dolphins do instead of laughing), but maybe something in his Inventory would be able to help; with his good hand he starts rummaging through his pockets, searching with a slight hint of desperation for something, anything. He has an old straw in there for some reason, maybe that could buy him some time when the water gets over his head. He can’t seem to find anything that could pry or bash open the airlock door, though—well, he does find a crowbar, but that’s kind of a two-hand job. The sorta-panic is blossoming into real-panic as he realizes his damn broken arm is probably the reason he can’t get out of this conundrum, and, if recent events are any indication, it’s very likely going to be the end of him. It's up to Max to solve this, but...

...How long will it take Max to realize anything’s wrong?

 

As it turns out, Sam is worrying over nothing, but that isn’t exactly unusual. Max has already figured out what’s going on, at least to some extent, and he is not happy, to put it lightly. “Let. Him. Go. Or. I. **Kill** . You. Is that so **hard** to **understand**?!” He screeches into the face of one rather defiant dolphin, pinning its slippery aquatic-mammalian body under him with one big rabbity foot. It feels absolutely disgusting to step on, but getting Sam out of the drowning-tank is more important, at least right now. Of course, the dolphins can’t talk, not in any language he’s ever learned (though he only knows two. Well, one and a half.) and their high-pitched chattery noises are starting to really piss him off. If he were a little more self-aware, he’d wonder how Sam can stand listening to him when he rambles about something, but luckily for his self-esteem he’s not self-aware in the slightest. He lets out a drawn-out growl of frustration, punching the dolphin one last time before springing off of it to smash buttons on their weird complicated supervillain control center, aiming to go at it until something miraculously sets his partner free.

He’s starting to lose what little patience he has. Mashing buttons does nothing but turn on and off a bunch of lights all over the place and open some doors but _not_ the _one_ door he wants to open, which is _really pissing him off._ Nothing there to help Sam, who he can see via a large television the sick jerks had set up to watch him drown, and who, he notes with alarm, is now standing on his tip-toes, snout lifted in the air, looking around with apparent fear with a... straw stuck in his nose? Weird, even for him, but alright. He hates drowning, he always has, ever since that one time in elementary school—no, now is no time for a flashback, he has to think! Thinking on his feet has always been his forte. He can solve this, even if Sam is better at puzzles.

The control console is no use, obviously. He’d probably need to have a flipper to properly use it, anyways, and he’d rather have gills if he has to choose an aquatic adaptation to adopt. So with one final growled threat he springs down off the now-somewhat-wrecked control console and dashes out the door, hoping he remembered how to read maps when he saw the floorplan of the base pop up earlier during unexplained plot events. If he can get to the door, maybe he can shoot it open or something. It’s a last-ditch effort, but it’s all he’s got, and as he sprints his way through obnoxiously same-y corridors not worth describing he finds himself angrily thinking about how this is the second time in twenty-four hours that he’s feeling that nauseous anxiety of not knowing whether or not he’s about to lose his best friend _again_. Er, again-again. Again in 24-hours that he might lose Sam again, as in, for the second time in his life. Gah, that’s too confusing. Better to not think about it. In any case—they need a break. This is getting to be just too much, even for them.

He skids to a stop in front of the door and glares at it, already furious at it even though he’s only tried one avenue of opening it. Time is of the essence and so far it’s been a huge waste of time. It’s one of those weird doors with a big turning wheel on it, the ones that don’t really make sense to him but apparently form airtight seals or something. The physics of the stupid door is not exactly important right now. He springs up and kicks at the wheel, but it doesn’t budge, and now he’s starting to kinda panic, too. Whipping his gun out of wherever it normally stays, he levels it at the door, and pulls the trigger. The bullet pings off the metal and he screams in annoyance, kicking at it again.

Somehow, that magically makes it work, and it pops open, blasting him with something like at least seven cubic feet of water, knocking him back into the wall. Coughing and spluttering, he sits up, shaking himself off; ahead of him in the room he sees Sam sitting down in a similar position, gasping for air. Max springs to his feet and rushes over, splashing a little bit. “Sam! Sam, are you okay?!”

“Yeah,” he spits, “yeah, I’m fine. Ugh, it was **salt** water.” Rubbing at his eyes with one hand, he grumbles.

The lagomorph impulsively hugs him, ignoring the gross feeling of wet clothes against his fur. “You smell like wet dog,” he says in an uncharacteristically sweet tone.

“Thanks, little buddy,” Sam replies flatly, getting up as his partner hops back. He wrings out his tie as best he can with one hand. “Let’s finish this, shall we?”

Max beams up at him, relieved beyond reason. Sam’s alright. A bit waterlogged and cranky, but not dead. And now they’re going to get to hand out another Freelance Police-style beatdown to a gang of no-good crooks! “Let’s!” He whips out his Luger again, enthused.

* * *

“I’d say that went pretty well, all things considered.” Sam comments, wiping the blood off his revolver with a tissue, then tossing said tissue on the ground outside their office and tucking the gun away in his jacket.

“It _was_ pretty neat, seeing you use your gun to impart blunt-force trauma!” Max replies with a huge smile as they mount the stairs to their office. “All without getting blood on your shirt, too!”

“What can I say, I’m a man of many talents. And few shirts.” The dog smiles, opening the door and waving Max in ahead of him. “Say, whaddaya wanna do for dinner? I think we’re all out of food in the office.”

“I don’t care.” Max has already sat down on the floor, picking up his favorite hammer.  Sam hums, thinking, and his partner winces. “Quit it, Sam, you know I hate when you hum. It sounds like a badly-grounded electric wire.”

Sam ignores him, but stops humming anyways, instead saying, “We haven’t seen Flint Paper since we had to move out here. Maybe he’d be open to catch up over dinner.”

Max stiffens with excitement. “Ooh, good idea!” He springs to his feet and Sam preemptively snatches the phone off of their desk, not keen on having Max call; for a moment he squints at the telephone, struggling to remember Flint’s office number. Max, seeming to pick up on this, rattles off the number from memory almost proudly.

Sam isn’t entirely sure his little buddy is correct until he hears a familiar gruff “Hello?” on the other end.

“Hiya, Flint!” Sam has to grab Max by the neck and hold him at arm’s length to keep the lagomorph from snatching the phone out of his hands—or, well, off his shoulder, given his broken arm can’t hold the phone, but whatever. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, hi, Sammy!” Flint’s tone brightens immensely. “Things are going pretty great on my end, how’s the Freelance Police business going?”

“Good, good,” Sam replies amicably.

Max is getting impatient, mainly because he wants to be put down already, and snaps, “Quit the pleasantries and ask him already!”

Sam shushes him quietly, shooting him a little glare, and his maw snaps shut audibly. “Say, would you happen to be free tonight?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Max and I were wondering if you’d wanna grab a bite and talk about detective stuff. It’s been a while since we all got together and swapped stories!”

“Great idea, furry pals!” Flint replies enthusiastically. “There’s a diner that I think is kinda halfway between our offices, near where the Meesta Pizza used to be. I’ll find you there!”

“Great!” Sam then hangs up and drops Max to the floor. “We’re headed to some diner halfway between us and Flint—”

“Can I drive?” Max interrupts, springing to his feet eagerly.

“Hell no. Let’s get going!”

Locating the diner isn’t too terribly difficult, but then again, they do have an uncanny knack for ending up wherever they ought be, regardless of how hazy the directions are. They park haphazardly, then leap from the car and saunter inside to find Flint already there, yammering cheerfully away at an employee; he turns to look as they step in, and grins, but the second he gets a proper look at them his eyes widen.

“Jeez, Sam-o, you didn’t mention your broken arm! What happened?!” Flint gawks at him, and Sam grins sheepishly.

“A case went sideways yesterday,” he answers as they sit down at the front bar area.

“Are you okay?” The P.I. gives Sam a worried once-over stare.

“Of course,” Sam responds almost defensively. He’s a grown dog, it’s only a broken bone.

Max springs into the seat beside his partner to cheerfully announce, “Don’t worry, Flint, I beat the thug **senseless** before dragging him to jail.” He stabs a fork into the table for emphasis, beaming maliciously.

Flint grins proudly at the lagomorph. “Attaboy, Max! Other than that, how’ve you been, furry pals?”

“The Commissioner keeps us busy, just like he always has,” Sam replies evenly. For the next few hours, the detectives share stories of what they’ve been up to lately, chattering cheerfully over a mediocre but affordable meal. Catching up is really nice; they rarely get the chance to do this, given their insane schedules, but tonight the stars aligned, it seems. Boisterous recounting of their various cases irritates those around them, but the trio are famous—perhaps infamous—enough that nobody’s going to tell them to shut up. A good time is had by everyone who matters.

As the conversation starts to wind down, Sam excuses himself to head to the bathroom before the Freelance Police would depart, leaving Flint and Max to carry on a conversation by themselves for a moment.

A bit of an odd silence settles—neither is a good conversationalist when there isn’t something around to react to—until Flint comments, “Ya’know, it’s nice to see him this cheery again. Back to his **old** **self**.”

Max blinks up at him. “Whaddaya mean?”

Flint scratches his permanent 5 o’clock shadow for a moment, then says, “Well, the last time I saw him was shortly after you’d, uh, _died_ , I guess. And he looked—well, the **obvious** turn of phrase would be ‘he looked like a kicked puppy.’ I’d never **seen** anybody look so sad!”

“Really?” Max’s eternal smile threatens to fall, replaced with a surprised stare.

“Yeah. Speaking of, it’s nice to have you back, both of you—He had that melancholy look in his eye, I’ve seen _that_ before. Guy’d lost all passion for everything,” his face darkens briefly, but he snaps out of it. “Glad to see the Freelance Police are back together and kickin’ ass like usual!”

Flint always had a way with words. Max stares down at the table for a second, digesting that, then brightens back to his usual self again. “New York couldn’t get rid of us for long!” He waves a hand, grinning proudly, and Flint smiles back.

In that moment, Sam appears, settling down in his seat again. “What’d I miss?”

“Nothing,” Max chirps pleasantly. Flint doesn’t challenge the statement.


	3. Not The Same, After All

Another loud snore rips through the air as Max stares sleeplessly at the ceiling. They’ve been awake for more than a day, he really should be asleep by now, but he can’t get his mind off what Flint told him earlier—the whole ‘kicked puppy’ comment. He knows exactly what Flint means, but he’s only seen that look on Sam’s face a couple times before, and not since they were kids. He doesn’t know why, but the idea of him being so upset is… troubling. He rolls onto his side, tucking one arm under his head, and decides to just quit thinking about it. Sam doesn’t seem so miserable now, so it must be fine, and there’s nothing to be troubled over.

Just as he shuts his eyes, the muttering starts up again. He only really notices it when he hears his name, but from then on, he sits up, ears perked and listening, confused but curious.

“...Still some of Max in there, I know…got to be another way…” Max leans over the edge of his bunk, peering down at Sam. “How can you say…?!” The dog is lying on his back, injured arm still in its sling because he was too lazy to take it off and refused any help—Max wonders how the hell he can stand sleeping in scratchy dress-clothes, but then again, he’s never really understood Sam’s seemingly-prudish desire to be overdressed all the time—and he really doesn’t look very happy at all. Max watches for a moment, a well-meaning but deeply unnerving gargoyle atop their bunk bed. “...going to fix this. I **promise** , little buddy.” He sounds so earnest even in half-slurred sleeptalking. Max slides down off his bunk, landing easily on the ground with just a quiet thud. Sam doesn’t wake, just keeps mumbling various odd things that Max doesn’t understand in the slightest, but he _does_ understand the distress on his partner’s face.

Clearly he’s **not** back to his old self. But that’s alright; Max isn’t either, not entirely. He’d never have considered it in times past, but now he finds himself climbing into Sam’s bunk again with the express intention of comforting his partner. Usually he’d do much the opposite—he’d smack Sam in the face then run off to avoid his ire—but he knows better than to wake Sam up right now; this is… different. It’s been a rough couple days, for sure, and maybe that’s the problem. Max sits beside his partner’s sleeping form and gently puts a hand on his chest, not wanting to mess with the broken arm even the teensiest bit, and not risking waking him up by touching his head. “Relax, Sam. It’s fine.” The muttering subsides for a moment. “I’m here and I’m not goin’ anywhere.” He’s fairly sure he knows what’s bothering him, on a subliminal level, but he refuses to acknowledge it. Just gently presses his hand to the dog’s chest and stares sleepily down at it, eyes glazed and mind wandering. Sam’s breathing relaxes, thankfully, and he stops talking altogether.

Max stays there for a while, long after Sam has slipped into a more restful sleep, silently listening to his partner snore until he feels tired enough to lie down as well. The sun is nearly rising by that point, tendrils of light clawing in through the cracks in their blinds to light up the room with a hazy thin glow of orange.

Sam wakes up the next morning to the sound of small snores on his right; he turns, a bit puzzled, to see Max curled like a cat right beside him, back nestled into his side. That’s a little unusual, but he doesn’t think much of it, just shimmies away before moving to sit up and get out of bed. Oddly, that doesn’t wake the infamously-light-sleeper, which Sam decides to view as a blessing, leaving him free to shower without having to fight for it; again he can’t easily get his shirt off past the cast and settles for just wadding it around the cast and hanging his arm out of the way of the water. Good enough, right? He’s mainly just rinsing off the sweat and replacing it with wet dog smell, anyways. When he gets out, he finally wrangles off the shirt, ending up with an aching arm and no desire to wrestle on a new shirt before it stops hurting, so he just puts his pants back on and heads out to ask his partner where they’ve put the painkillers. Max is sitting on the living room floor in front of the television, cross-legged, watching cartoons with his usual grin.

“Do we have any aspirin? I didn’t see any in the bathroom, did we put it somewhere else?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Max replies without looking up from the television. Sam huffs. Ask a stupid question… He decides to check the kitchen, then the bedroom, and finds a bottle in their nightstand, underneath some old bacon. He chucks said bacon unceremoniously onto the wall behind him, then dry-swallows a couple of the pills, grimacing a little.

“Found ’em,” he announces as he ducks his head back into the living room. “Wanna get donuts for breakfast?”

Now **that** gets Max’s attention. The lagomorph springs to his feet. “Boy, do I!”

“Give me a minute to find a shirt.” Sam ducks back out.

“If you weren’t such a _prude—_ ” Max starts, only to be cut off by a loud “Shut up, Max” from their bedroom. He snickers, shaking his head, then shuts off the TV. Sam comes sauntering back in wearing a tank top that most definitely hasn’t seen action since college, arm in the sling again. Max gives him a stare. “What the hell is that?”

Sam reddens a little bit. “I didn’t feel like bothering with sleeves yet today,” he replies defensively.

Max frowns for a second as Sam walks past him. “Does your arm hurt?”

“Kinda. Not really,” Sam lies. To be honest, it aches like hell, and he hates it, but he really doesn’t want Max to get all weird on him again. He’s still a bit spooked by the sheer level of rage the little lagomorph had displayed towards the villain who did this. “It’ll be alright, I took an aspirin. Let’s go!” His partner seems only marginally satisfied by this answer, but at least he shuts up about it, filing in line behind him.

Sam can actually drive pretty well with one hand. Not much worse than with both, though Max realizes halfway there that prying one hand off the steering wheel is much easier than prying two, and so ends up ‘helping’ Sam drive much more than usual, much to the dog’s extreme annoyance. Luckily they don’t crash into anything more resilient than them, though certainly the vocational police would like to have a word with them at some point. They careen into the parking lot of their local donut-bakery and Sam finally shoves Max out of his lap with a growl. “Don’t do that on the way back,” he snaps, irritated.

“No promises,” Max sings gleefully as he hops out of the DeSoto, earning another glare from his partner. “Ooh, let’s get some of the cream-filled ones to use like **hand-grenades**!”

“Maybe later.” Sam replies, ambling into the store. He’s in no mood to indulge his partner’s impulses after a drive like that.

Buying donuts is an uneventful thing, even though Max kept trying to crawl over the counter like a goblin. He cut that out when Sam yanked him off the floor and plunked him on his shoulders, seemingly placated by being allowed to be tall, briefly. Sam actually quite enjoys this place, and would like to keep from getting banned as long as possible. What _was_ eventful, though, was trying to keep Max from eating all of them on the drive back. Sam practically has to sit on the box to keep the lagomorph from scarfing them down, and even that doesn’t work too well, as Max is more than happy to climb into the dog’s lap to get at them, which ruins his focus on driving for myriad reasons, only one of which he’d admit to—that being Max’s watermelon-sized head obscuring his vision.

“Get _out_ of my _lap_ , Max,” he snarls, letting some frustration through to mask the fact that his partner being essentially pinned to his chest makes his heart rate feel very much too fast to be healthy.

“ **Bite me** , I wanna donut—” Max tries reaching for the box.

Sam’s lip curls and now the annoyance has won out over the attraction. “Careful what you ask for, little buddy.” He turns sharply to toss Max off him again but of course Max somehow knows that’s what he’s about to do and grabs on tight to the leg of his pants (thankfully not catching any of Sam’s thigh in his abrupt grip). “I just might.” And then, as Max opens his mouth, Sam barks, “ **Don’t** turn that into an innuendo!”

Max’s jaw snaps shut but the smug grin is nearly as bad as whatever gross innuendo he might’ve been about to say.

Sam growls, frustrated, and fixes his eyes to the road to avoid seeing that smarmy smile and subsequently trying to strangle his little buddy. He also, however, doesn’t see Max’s face turn a light pale pink as his eyes flit between Sam’s glare, his good hand’s deathly grip on the steering wheel, and his teeth poking out from his curled lip. Suddenly the donuts seem less appealing to Max now and not just because they’re wedged between Sam and the driver’s side door (and being nearly-sat-on). He’s torn between wanting to push Sam further and not particularly wanting to die—well, not before getting to have at least one donut, that is. Though he knows if Sam ever did lose control and kill him (extraordinarily unlikely though it may be) he’d never be able to forgive himself, and Max would rather not get the ball rolling towards _that_ concept.

So instead he does something very un-Max-like of him, and backs off, letting go of Sam’s pants leg and hopping back into his seat. He doesn’t apologize—that’d be too much—but he does sit back and watch Sam cool down, with only mild disappointment. He also keeps his trap shut for the rest of the drive, until they skid to a stop in front of their house and he’s launched out of the car, landing in the topiary he and Sam have cut into the shape of his head. Then, he hefts himself out of it, falling to the ground with a tree branch in his mouth. “Nice one, Sam! But I only got one branch this time.” He waves said branch (now covered in his spit) triumphantly in the air as he springs to the front door.

“Too bad it didn’t brain you, little buddy.” Sam replies lightheartedly, stepping out of the car with the donuts in his good hand. He kicks the door closed and joins his partner at the front door. “Reach into my pocket for the keys, would you?” Max obliges without comment, fishing around for a moment before pulling out their house keys and shoving them in the lock. “Hey, don’t **break** ’em.”

The door clicks, then swings open. “I didn’t!” Max chirps, bouncing into their home, swinging the keys from one of his fingers. Sam rolls his eyes and kicks the door shut behind him, still a little bit moody. They settle in on the couch, the box at first in Sam’s lap, then between Sam and the arm of the couch, as Max cannot be trusted but he griped about “his spot” being taken by a box. Sam was tempted to poke fun at Max for that but he knew if he did then his little buddy might stop sitting in his lap, at least for a week or so, and he wouldn’t want **that** to happen.

Max, of course, goes for a powdered donut first and proceeds to make a mess of it; somehow one powdered donut contains enough powdered sugar to coat the lagomorph’s entire face and hands—sometimes arms up to the elbows—which he then likes to rub on Sam to spread the powder _everyfuckingwhere_. It’s a particularly nefarious game given how well it blends into Max’s fur but sticks out so starkly on Sam’s; there’ve been plenty of times Max has stealthily smacked his hand someplace Sam couldn’t easily notice, then waited to see how long it took his canine cohort to realize what happened. The longest record is twelve minutes: a handprint to the back of the head. If he hadn’t felt something odd when putting on his hat it could’ve gone the whole day. Needless to say, he was fairly irate, as washing the back of his head could get water in his ears which he **despises** , but Max just giggled gleefully in that way he does where Sam can’t stay mad at him. Of course, Sam could easily remedy this by just not buying powdered donuts, but they’re Max’s favorite, and not just because of the mayhem they can cause, although that is a factor.

Sam picks up a random donut, not paying much attention, and shoves the entire thing in his mouth before reaching for the remote and clicking the television on. Max scrabbles into his lap, half-eaten donut in hand, and then of course after he shoves the remainder of it in his mouth he peers up at Sam with a calculating stare. Sam, were he not focused on finding a channel to watch, would recognize it as Trouble, the kind that warrants a capital “T.” Max is thinking and, in situations like these at least, the only thing he ever pauses to think about is mischief. “Hey, Sam?”

“Hey, what?” As predicted, Sam tilts his nose down a little to look at Max, and that’s when the lagomorph makes his move. His hand darts forward to boop Sam’s nose, and then his palm just smacks Sam right in the lips, leaving a fairly sizable white-powder handprint across his muzzle. To add insult to injury Max takes advantage of the momentary shock on his partner’s face to plant his own face in Sam’s chest, right at the neckline of the gross old tank top he’s wearing. The second the dog recovers himself he shoves the lagomorph off and barks a very angry, “ ** _Max_**!”

“Gotcha!” Max cackles like a hyena as Sam wipes at his face, glaring furiously.

“Not funny.” He growls.

“ _I_ think it is,” Max starts, but before he can continue the growl gets louder and Sam springs from the couch; what ensues is the two tearing around the house like a pair of idiots, until Sam catches up to and pins Max with his good arm, still growling, though it can be barely heard over Max’s giggling.

“You’ve been a real **pain** this morning,” Sam snarls.

“And _you’ve_ been real quick to anger this morning,” Max observes jovially, peering up at his partner, who has him by the neck/torso. Sam’s hand is large enough to cover both. It’s more like an oven mitt laying across him, really.

That takes the wind right out of the dog’s sails, it seems, and the angry glow leaves his eyes quickly. He slumps a bit and lets go. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“Aw, what?” Max asks and Sam can’t really tell if he’s teasing or genuinely disappointed. “Giving up so soon?”

“Shut up, Max.” Now he just sounds tired. And Max suddenly feels a little bad. More bad than he usually does after irritating Sam. The dog plods back to the couch where the donut box is still sitting and flops down again, plucking one of his favorite kinds of donuts. He chomps down on it and glares at the television, no longer caring what station it was on. A few minutes later, during which Sam has eaten two more donuts, Max climbs up onto the couch and, sheepishly, back into Sam’s lap. He picks up another donut and then casually leans back on the dog, tilting his head to let his ear brush against the part of Sam’s chest that now has powdered sugar on it, dusting a bit off. It’s a very poor attempt to make up for being so annoying, but one that doesn’t go unnoticed by his partner, whose expression lightens. He puts a paw on Max’s head and pats him appreciatively, silently accepting the apology.

They enjoy their breakfast quietly, until the donuts are all gone, and then they sit watching T.V. until the phone rings and they both hurtle across the house toward the nearest telephone in their routine race to answer first. As always, Sam wins, and gets to talk to the Commissioner, keeping Max pinned to the wall with his foot.

“Uh-huh? Uh-huh, yep, yeah-huh, you got it! We’re on our way!” With that, he slams the phone back down on the receiver, letting go of Max and standing up straight all at once.

“Was that the Commissioner?” Max asks from his new place on the floor, peering up at Sam. Amusingly, he seems haloed by the ceiling light above him, placed perfectly behind his head.

“It sure was, Max, and we’ve got a case to solve—” He grins down at the lagomorph and then abruptly his eyebrows raise and he looks up, toward their room, as if remembering something— "Which means I’ve gotta find a shirt.”

Max eyes him. “What, you mean you don’t want to fight crime in a greasy ill-fitting tank top?” Not that he would particularly be complaining, but, well, it would look quite funny, and he can’t resist pointing that out.

Sam meanders off. “There’s something to be said for an air of professionalism, little buddy.”

Max decides after a moment to get up and follow him, remembering vaguely that there was some sort of reason that Sam was wearing a tank top that likely hadn’t seen any action since the 80’s or something. He remembers what that reason is when he sees his partner, shirtless, grumbling and wincing and struggling to tug on his usual dress shirt over that damned cast. “Having trouble?” He asks with a touch of amusement.

Sam huffs, frustrated. “You’d think I’d get the hang of it by now…”

Max saunters up, nudging at Sam’s hand to prompt the dog to let him help. “What’s that saying about old dogs and new tricks?” he quips, earning a glare. Max grins up at him, giving him an open-palm shrug; he doesn’t say anything but it’s a nonverbal sort of “you want my help, or not?” Sam relents after a split second where he really, really wants to insist that he can do it. He just wants to get going on their next case quickly. Max does as he’s done before, though this time he doesn’t just politely look away and rather finds himself staring at the remnants of powdered sugar on Sam’s chest, trying not to giggle. It’s just a funny-looking smudge now.

“Ow.” Sam winces.

“Quit bein’ such a big baby,” Max admonishes, tugging the sleeve down over the cast.

“I’m **not** being a baby, it **hurts**!” Sam snaps a little defensively, and his partner snickers, taking a step back.

“Sure, Sam.” He says in a tone that’s just a little too genuinely loving. He winces internally at the slip-up, not too keen on having Sam realize that taking care of him isn’t as much of a burden or annoyance as he likes to pretend. Given how often Sam has to pick him up to reach tall things, or throw him like a grenade to get someplace he needs to go, it’s nice to reverse the roles even a little bit. He doesn’t tend to be thought of as ‘dependable’ but he doesn’t mind being depended-on. Well, alright, he doesn’t mind Sam depending on him. Other people would be annoying.

Luckily, Sam is dense as hell, and interprets it as Max’s usual sarcasm. “Well, thanks anyways, bullethead.” He huffs, rolling his shoulders; the lagomorph breathes a silent sigh of relief. “Alright. We better get going, or else we’ll forget what we’re supposed to be doing.”

“Right.” Max nods. “What are we supposed to be doing, again?”

“Oh, yeah. We’re headed off to faraway Arizona to stop a shady billionaire politician from launching a rocket into the sky that will supposedly set off a chain-reaction blanketing half of North America in a months-long rain of frogs and lizards, somehow.”

“Sounds like a situation rife with potential explosions!” Max claps his hands together, excited.

“You said it, Max!” Sam beams back down at him. “We should get going. It’s a few hours’ drive, at least.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oop i dont like this chapter as much as the others sorry if it's kinda bleh--


	4. In Which Sam Gets Roughed Up, Again (Poor Guy)

Sam lets out a little “oof” as he hits the ground, still a fair bit startled, ears ringing from the force of the blow to his head. He hears cackling as he shakes his head, trying to get up, until the report of a pistol makes him flinch and for a second he’s almost terrified he’s been shot; no, the pain is just from his assailant’s foot being planted into his back, right as a warning shot was fired at his partner. As if for good measure, the guy kicks his head again, knocking his hat off and plowing his face into the dirt, hard, and now he’s completely disoriented, head pounding painfully.

Max glares furiously, so pissed-off his nose is wrinkled slightly, razor-sharp teeth bared, Luger lifted and his finger pressed to its trigger as he snarls, “You get your hands **off** him.”

“You’re outnumbered, little rabbit,” A man to his left sneers, gun leveled at the lagomorph’s head. “You kill him and I’ll put a bullet in you, then your partner.”

Max glances over briefly in what should have been, by his aggressor’s count, trepidation, but the threats only seem to have stoked the fires of his rage, glowing in his beady brown eyes. He readjusts the grip on his weapon and everyone stiffens save for the dazed Sam lying on the ground, still reeling from being battered so terribly. “You hurt him and you’ll **have** to put a bullet in me if you wanna keep all your organs on the _inside_.” He’s speaking through clenched teeth and he can see unease brewing in the mindless thugs pointing guns at him. He doesn’t care about his own life at all right now, just focused on keeping Sam alive. Murderous rage has engulfed him and given him emotional tunnel vision (moreso than usual): his partner’s safety is the only goal, he’s completely disregarding their case.

“Now, gentlemen, let’s settle this in a civil manner.” The greasy politician behind this all begins from his position beside the launch console. “Rabbit, you put your gun **down** and don’t stop us from launching this rocket, and we’ll give you your doggy friend back, **unharmed**.”

Max’s brain spins at a mile a minute for a moment and then he slowly lowers his weapon. “Let Sam go.”

“Put your gun on the **floor** …” The politician speaks as if asking a kindergartener to do a simple task and Max decides that, if given the opportunity, he’s going to yank the man’s vocal cords out with his bare hands. Putting his gun on the floor won’t do anything for them, of course—he has another squirreled away in his hidden Inventory, as well as a wrench and several grenades, just to scratch the surface. But they don’t know that, and they don’t _need_ to know that. He opens his hand and lets the gun tip out of it elegantly, clattering to the ground.

“Let. Sam. **Go**.” He insists.

The lackey with his boot pressed to the now-somewhat-more-lucid dog’s head glances at the politician. The politician nods, and the man gives one final kick to Sam’s head before stepping off of him with a shit-eating grin. Max can barely restrain himself, entire body shaking, but he waits until the man is far enough away from Sam before launching himself at the nearest lackey and setting off a chain-reaction of chaos. The moment he hits the person he’s flung himself at, they pull the trigger on their gun and miss by a country mile, hitting the idiot opposite them instead. He wrenches the gun from their hand and snaps their arm just for good measure before lunging at the man who kicked Sam more than once, who seems frozen in shock. Firing the gun would be too pleasant; instead, he smashes the butt end of it into the guy’s nose and grins at the little shower of blood that ensues, taking the momentary shock as an opportunity to leap back up and kick the man square in the chest with both legs, like a kangaroo, backflipping most elegantly off his falling body to land next to Sam.

“Are you okay?” he speaks with unusual care in his voice as he peers down at his partner.

“My head hurts.” Sam answers a little pathetically, sitting up with one paw pressed to his forehead.

Max takes a half-step closer to Sam, then lifts his gun to level it at the now-moderately-terrified politician, who has just watched an irate lagomorph decimate his little defense team. “Call off your rocket or we’ll just destroy it, _and_ you.” His other hand graces the top of Sam’s head lightly, briefly, before returning to his side.

“Alright! Don’t shoot!” He’s thoroughly not willing to argue at all after a display like that, and takes several steps back, hands in the air.

Max grins cruelly, and, beside him, Sam wobbles to his feet, grumbling a little and rubbing his head. His mood lightens as he looks down at his partner, though, and he smiles, putting his hat back on. “Good work, Max. Too bad I missed the violence on account of being discombobulated, though.”

“I can give you a show on _this_ guy, if you want!” Max chirps, gesturing to the politician, who is fairly sure he’s just literally shit himself.

“Nah, that’s alright. Let’s just destroy that rocket whose purpose I’ve entirely forgotten but is most certainly not benign.” Sam waltzes up to said rocket and examines it, trying to puzzle out the best way to get rid of it. “Hm. Let’s crash it into the Grand Canyon, or something. That’s in Arizona, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know or care.” Max replies cheerily, still beaming menacingly at their trembling villain.

“Does this thing have a steering wheel?” Sam tries his best to climb up onto the thing but gives up pretty quickly. It’s slippery and his one arm can’t heft his whole weight, at least not easily. “Hey, greasy bourgeoise asshole, does this thing have a steering wheel?”

“N-N-No, no, it doesn’t,” he splutters. “It’s, um, unmanned.”

“Damn.” Max scowls.

Sam steps up beside him. “Well, so much for that idea. Let’s just program it to fly into the ocean or something.”

“Aw, but that’s not as _exciting_ as getting to blow it up.” Max huffs, prompting the dog to put a gentle hand on his head.

“Sometimes, watching something crash into the ocean is the only fun you get in life.” He says sagely.

Max isn’t impressed. “Whatever. Let’s bag’em and **go**!” He tosses his hands up in the air and starts heading back to the DeSoto.

Sam shrugs. “Alright, little buddy.”

* * *

“Whew, what a day, huh?” Sam flops down on the couch with a happy sigh; after their mission, they’d swung by their favorite pizza joint and gorged themselves on two large pizzas composed mostly of heart-stopping grease, so they’re about ready to slip into a food coma this evening. Max doesn’t answer, but hops up beside and then slumps against his partner. He’s fully prepared to just fall asleep watching T.V. but Sam abruptly picks up the fuzzy white hand nearest him and examines Max’s knuckles, gently running a thumb across them. Before the lagomorph can ask him what the hell he’s doing, his partner asks, “Jeez, Max, when did you split your knuckles open?”

“Same night you broke your arm.” Max admits, yanking his hand back. Sam gives him a surprised stare. “What? It didn’t **hurt**. I’m fine.” He lies in a very defensive, irritated tone.

“It’s a wonder that guy had any teeth left,” Sam muses, a small smile spreading across his muzzle. “You really went to town on ‘em, huh?” Max says nothing, uneasily staring at the television as he recalls the events of that evening. Sam looks down at him again, then pats him on the head. He must be tired, that’s why he’s so quiet; the dog decides to leave his partner alone, leaning back on the sofa. Not long after making that decision, he hears quiet snores coming from the little lagomorph, and he grins. “That’s awful cute, Max.” He murmurs softly, gently petting his partner. His fur is fluffy and only a little bit greasy from what he hopes is just sweat.

An hour or so later he grows tired of the reruns he’s watching, and plucks his little buddy off the couch, carrying him back to the bedroom. Once he gets there, though, he runs into a little bit of a snag: he can’t heft Max into the top bunk with only one hand, unless he pitches him like a basketball. He could do that and risk Max’s ire, or he could put Max in his bunk, take the top bunk himself, and risk falling on him (again), also evoking the little hellion’s wrath. Neither is appealing, as both could potentially result in his little buddy kicking his ass, and the only compromise is to try and share a bunk, which is also not very appealing to him at the moment. But he’s fairly tired and not eager to sleep on the couch, much less to leave Max on the couch all alone, so he just sighs and puts Max in his bed, then squeezes in beside him. “Goodnight, little buddy,” he says sleepily, then turns off the lights and nuzzles into his sheets, glad to be able to catch some shut-eye before their next case.

All is peaceful in the Freelance Police house for a few hours, until Max snaps awake with a little jolt, looking around for a second like he doesn’t know where he is. The moment his eyes fall on the snoring form of his partner, though, he relaxes, sighing silently. Sam is curled into his sheets, absolutely hogging them, which is bizarre considering he’s already overdressed for sleeping in the warm weather, and Max has half a mind to yank some sheets away from him, as he’s a bit chilly, but instead he just huddles up next to Sam, staring at the back of his head with his mind wandering. For once in his life he’s really hoping they _don’t_ have a case tomorrow. The past few have been too stressful for him, really. Not because of the typical shenanigans they get into, but because of how they seem somewhat cursed to always end up separated, which he hates even when there isn’t that extra caveat of having Sam’s life at risk. Sure, playing hero and saving Sam is kinda nice, but it doesn’t make up for the heart-stopping panic that is realizing Sam’s fragile needy little life rests in his woefully-unequipped hands.

That thought prompts him to reach out with one hand and just gently rest it on Sam’s shoulder. He can’t quite wrap his arms around his partner, of course, given the size difference and all, but this is enough. He shuts his eyes again, silently listening to the dog snore and, amusingly, make sleeping-puppy noises. Truth be told he quite likes the fact that he can never seem to sleep more than three hours at a time these days, as it gives him more of an opportunity to experience and appreciate moments like these. Quiet moments where it’s just the two of them and he can pretend their bizarre life-partnership is more than just platonic.

Though he feels that’ll only ever be make-believe.

* * *

The next day, Max gets his wish—no one calls, not even telemarketers, which is a true blessing. Sam spends the day icing his various bruises and feels much better by midday, surprisingly. They’re relaxing on the couch together, watching daytime television, and likely going to order pizza for dinner (again), so long as they don’t get a late-night call. It’s been a nice day. A nice, stress-free day. Other than the stress of trying to find some television actually worth watching. Around three, one of their favourite shows airs, but once that’s over, they’re back to vegetating on the couch and flipping aimlessly through the channels. The lagomorph is nestled in the crook of his partner’s good arm, phasing in and out of consciousness, barely paying attention to anything until…

There’s a sort of scraping, grinding noise coming from somewhere. At first, Max thinks it’s maybe some sort of yard work going on outside—that happens in suburbs, he reasons; other people take care of their homes or whatever—but he can’t see outside. It also doesn’t really _sound_ like yard work. More like someone’s sanding down some kind of a sculpture, but doing so very poorly. Maybe drunkenly. _Scrape, scrape, scrape_.

It takes him maybe a little too long to shift his curiosity a bit closer to home and, subsequently, realize he’s hearing Sam gnawing on his cast in some kind of strange frustrated canine stupor. For a second he just watches, baffled. Sam is usually more civilized than him, at least marginally so, making this a very unusual sight, to say the least. His yellowish teeth are grinding across it in a way that just can’t be pleasant, and he’s almost drooling just due to the fact that his mouth is open.

“Sam, what the **hell** are you doing?” He wants to sound stunned, but he’s just so shocked that he’s come out the other end, sounding normal again, almost deadpan.

His partner jolts, then glances down at himself, and then yanks his arm out of his mouth. At this point Max is struggling not to burst into a fit of giggles, biting his lip almost hard enough to draw blood. Sam wipes his chin and is clearly struggling to decide if this is a defensible action or not. “It—The cast is annoying.” He offers lamely, and Max howls with laughter, further embarrassing the dog.

“Do we need to get you a **cone of shame**?” Max teases.

Sam burns a bright scarlet. “ _No_.” He growls defensively.

“Are you sure? You’re not gonna chew your cast off like a _puppy_ gnawing at its stitches?” The lagomorph giggles, kicking his feet against the couch. Sam doesn’t answer, which only makes Max laugh even harder, hysterically so, even though his partner is giving him one of those glares that’d have the death toll of a nuclear bomb if looks could kill. Eventually the cackling subsides, slowly, with a lot of wheezing and wiping tears off his face. Sam stares sullenly at the television until Max gently puts a hand on his arm, still giggling slightly. He glances down, still clearly upset, and Max takes a deep breath, then manages a, “I’m sorry it’s bothering you, Sam,” before dissolving into another fit of giggles.

“Aw, shut up already, Max.” Sam shoves Max’s hand off but of course the rabbit-y creature just flops down onto his arm instead, still shaking with laughter.

“Promise I’m not laughing _at_ you, Sam.” He snickers. “Well, a little.”

“You’re not making a good case for yourself.” Sam mutters. If he had the ability, he’d cross his arms. As it is, he just shoves the broken one between him and the couch to deter that embarrassing debacle from happening again.

Max still can’t stop laughing, though he’s really, really trying. It’s just so unusual these days to see Sam this undignified—It’s nearly as funny as the time he decided to eat a peanut butter sandwich despite despising the whole peanut-butter-dog-mouth thing, and ended up spending the better part of an hour licking his chops, trying to get it out of his teeth. God, that was hilarious, and now Max is laughing even harder remembering the irritated look on Sam’s face. He’d been really pissed when Max teasingly asked him if it was worth it.

(It was not worth it.)

“If you throw up from laughing so much, I’m making **you** clean it up,” Sam growls. Max cackles like a hyena until he runs out of air and then, finally, stops laughing, red-faced and wheezing yet again. The dog sort of harrumphs and mutters, “It can’t have been _that_ funny.” Which almost starts Max up again, but Sam smacks him across the face, knocking the lagomorph off him and into a more upright position on the couch. “Snap out of it, Max!”

“Hit me again, I like it!” Max chirps, laughter entirely forgotten. Sam chooses to ignore that, looking back at the television. Max frowns, wondering if the canine knows he was being serious, then decides to just let it go and fall back into the couch. He’s entirely forgotten what show they were watching, if he even knew in the first place. After a minute or two he suddenly says, “Hey, Sam? Why are we watching this?”

Sam doesn’t have an immediate answer. And then he turns off the T.V. “Max, I have no idea.” He stands up.

“Can we go set something on fire?” Max asks, peering hopefully up at his partner.

Sam mulls it over for a moment. Max has been quite well-behaved today, all things considered; the lagomorph clasps his hands together and widens his eyes, and Sam can’t resist, smiling warmly down at his little buddy. “Let’s go on a walk and if we find a criminal, I’ll… look the other way.” He likes to pretend he actually upholds some sort of law.

Max grins widely, springing off the couch joyfully. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” he grabs hold of Sam’s hand and yanks him to the door. Sam chuckles good-naturedly, letting Max drag him around; it’s rather endearing, watching his partner work himself up into a froth at the mere thought of getting to inflict violence.

“Alright, easy, easy, little buddy,” he chuckles, opening the door for Max before the lagomorph can kick it open, which would probably break it. He’d rather have a functioning front-door-lock. Keeps the riff-raff out. Or, at least, the riff-raff that isn’t them. They tear off down the street toward the city, Max leading and Sam not far behind him.

* * *

The sun is starting to go down, yellow sun burning gold as it slowly eases down towards the horizon, growing redder and redder as time passes. Sam glances up as a streetlamp a ways behind them flickers and buzzes to life. “I think now might be a good time to turn back, Max.” He comments. They’d been standing at a crosswalk, waiting for their turn to go—or for a lull in traffic—but turning around would be a lot easier. They’ll be getting back after dark at this rate.

“So soon? But we only beat up _one_ criminal!” Max whines, stomping a foot in defiance.

Sam winces a little. “I still don’t think what he was doing was illegal, Max. Weird, but not a crime.”

“Whatever.” Max crosses his arms, now thoroughly in a mood. Sam restrains a sigh. It was too much to hope Max wouldn’t be a brat at all today, but, then again, if Max were sweet as pie all the time (and not just when he’s recently broken something Sam cares about) he wouldn’t be Max and they wouldn’t be friends.

“Well, **I’m** going to walk back.” Sam turns. “ **You** can keep going if you want, I’m not going to stop you.” He waves over his shoulder as he starts to saunter down the street. He looks up at the darkening sky and mutters, “Three… two… o—” Something crashes into him from behind, a familiar impact, and he grins as Max wraps his arms around his neck, steadying himself before reaching back with his good arm and hefts Max up a bit to get a better grip. “ **Knew** that’d work,” he lets himself gloat a bit.

Max sneers. “What, you think I was gonna actually _walk_ the whole way back, with my own two feet, like a **common dog**? Dream _on_ , Sammy.”

“Gee, I guess you got me,” Sam plays along, like he doesn’t love giving Max piggyback rides (well, on most days, at least). “Suppose I’ll have to pitch you off…” Before Max can even react, Sam whips the lagomorph off his shoulder and chucks him as high in the air as he can with just one arm, earning a joyful screech from his partner as he comes crashing right back down into Sam’s arms.

“Do it again! Do it again!” Max cheers, wriggling in his grip.

Sam pretends to think for a moment, looking off to his left. “Jeez, I dunno…” His eyes skate back to Max, who looks like he’s about to protest, or start making demands, and the dog pretends to relent, “I _think_ I’ve got **one** more throw in me...”

And with a loud “WHEEEE!” Max is flying through the sky again, Sam chuckling heartily and opening his arms to catch the lagomorph again.

“ _Oof_ ,” he grunts painfully as Max lands, though luckily he catches him mostly in his good arm, “Alright, alright, let’s get going, little buddy.”

To his surprise Max amicably chirps out a little “Okay!” and climbs back up onto Sam’s shoulders, settling back into position. Sam rolls his eyes, bemused, and carries on giving him a piggyback ride.

By the time they get home, Max has stolen Sam’s hat, plunked it on his own head, then passed out snoring on Sam’s head. The sky is a dark inky blue, dotted with stars—more stars the further away they get from the city smog, though their suburban house isn’t all that far away—and one pale moon. He has to lean forward a little to keep Max on his back as he lets go of the lagomorph’s leg for a moment to fish through his pockets for the keys. The door opens and he steps inside, shuts it behind him, then carefully maneuvers the sleeping lagomorph off his shoulders and into his arms, not keen on bonking the little guy’s head into the door-frames. This time when he carries Max back to their room, he doesn't hesitate before he tucks the lagomorph into the bottom bunk bed, then changes into his pajamas and climbs in beside him.

“Goodnight, Max,” he says pleasantly, tossing an arm over his partner before shutting his eyes. The last thing he thinks before he slips into an exhausted sleep is how nice it would be to do this all of the time.


	5. Another Case!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter’s events occur a couple days after the previous one’s. Also, it features a slight hint at disordered eating so if that bothers you, maybe skip down to the first horizontal-line-thing and don’t read the very first part. It’s not major but i don’t want anyone blindsided by it, ykno ?

The day had been a long one but a good one, as per usual. Sam’s broken arm was starting to get under his skin (er, gruesome pun not intended) and today he damn near lost it, too frustrated at not being able to aim properly with his non-dominant hand. Sure, Max usually got to have most of the fun, what with his tendency to get hands-on a bit quicker, but it wasn’t fair for the lagomorph to have **all** the fun. Max was sympathetic, of course, but a cold comfort; he’d never been good at reassuring his partner, at least in his opinion, but he does his best and hopes that Sam, on some level, understands what he’s getting at. Lately (meaning, the past few months) he seems to have gotten keen to it, an oddly abrupt change that went from him saying “aw, never mind!” to pausing a moment, then muttering a sincere, “thanks, little buddy.” Or, something along those lines. Today was no exception; he whined about not being able to participate in the firefight, and Max cheerfully suggested Sam pick him up and wave him around instead, possibly improving Max’s aim in the process. Sam had seemed to genuinely consider it for a second, then just chuckled and said his trademark “you crack me up, little buddy.”

Max was just glad to have lightened his mood, if only for a minute.

He seemed a lot more irritable lately—’lately’ being the past two days—but insists he’s fine, of course, as he always does. Maybe it’s the lingering ache of a broken arm, maybe it’s the frustration of feeling left-out on all the fun violence, but either way, he’s pretty crabby, which ordinarily would make pushing his buttons even more fun, but today it just felt a bit cruel, kicking a man while he’s down. Well, okay, that premise was never cruel to Max (or at least, not un-enjoyably cruel), but it was different when it came to Sam. It always was.

Watching him go off on the villain du jour was always fun, though. On occasion Max would deliberately put himself in a situation just dangerous enough to agitate Sam but not dangerous enough to be inescapable, purely to see Sam do that _thing_ where he curls his lip up and his brows furrow deeper than when he’s thinking and he _growls,_ deep in the back of his throat. A weirdly powerful sound for a soft and lovable dog-man, but one Max is, to put it lightly, very fond of. He can’t recall a time his reality’s Sam—the now-dead one—had done that; or, at least, his growls hadn’t been this _loud_ and _imposing_ before. And he’d never been so inclined to damn near tear someone’s throat out before now. It’s kind of exciting, if he’s honest. That being said, the irritation hasn’t worn off on the entire drive home, which is unusual given Max is on his bestest behavior ever in his opinion, and now Sam lets out a loud annoyed huff as he slings his coat onto the coat rack by their door, plunking his hat down on it too. Max waddles into their home from behind him, watching him warily out of the corner of his eye; the ride home hadn’t had a lot of banter to it, what with Sam just grumbling quiet acknowledgement to Max’s quips instead of actually engaging in a conversation. That had been frustrating, to say the least. And while he typically liked making Sam mad to some degree it didn’t feel quite right anymore.

The large brown dog stomps his way to the living room and flops down on their couch, sinking into it with a (thankfully) satisfied sigh. _Maybe he’ll finally lighten the hell up already_ , Max thinks as he wanders to the kitchen for a frozen burrito. “Hey, Sam!”

“Hey, what?” He still sounds a bit peeved.

Max springs onto the counter to reach the freezer. “Ya want a burrito?”

Sam grimaces, turning on the TV. “I’d rather **die** , to be honest.”

“That could be arranged~!” The lagomorph yanks open the freezer door, nabs a frozen burrito of brick-like hardness, and hops back down, grinding his teeth against it. He doesn’t bother to cook them, usually, just gnaws on them until they’re defrosted enough to eat. Sam hates it because of the noise it makes, so the lagomorph decides not to sit with his partner for once, wary of further pissing him off. Instead, he heads to their dining room to sit at the table they _never_ use, chewing on the burrito like a dog with a bone. A behavior more suited to his partner, but then again, Sam always had just slightly more dignity than Max, at least in some regards.

He gets about half an hour to himself before Sam wanders in and says, “Oh, _there_ you are.”

“Wha’ya want?” Max asks around the burrito stuck in his mouth. He hadn’t been aware Sam was looking for him, probably too caught up in the chaos of eating an ice-block of a burrito. He also can’t fathom why Sam would be looking for him, either.

“I was just wonderin’ where you went.” He sits down next to Max.

The lagomorph finally takes the burrito out of his mouth to give him a puzzled look. “You _hate_ the sound of my teeth grinding against frozen, mummified burrito, so I went out here and left you to watch TV.”

“What? Why?” Sam blinks at him, confused by this uncharacteristic mindfulness from his partner.

“You already were in a bad mood.” Max jams the burrito back in his mouth.

He shrugs. Can’t deny that, but, still… he’d wanted to unwind with his little buddy, not fester in solitude. “Well, I missed you during a rerun of _Whose Line_. You know I love when we get to yell the punch-line in sync.” He reaches over and ruffles Max’s fur with his good hand.

Both of them love doing that, and they’re well aware of it. “Well, if it won’t annoy y—” Max starts, but Sam almost immediately interrupts.  

“Of course it won’t, come on!” He stands up quickly like an eager puppy, and Max rolls his eyes before following him. They plunk down on the couch together, Max sitting half in Sam’s lap, as is the norm, settled into the crook of his good arm and chomping away on the now-somewhat-unfrozen burrito.

By the time Max has finished his burrito, Sam is snoring, muzzle resting between his partner’s ears. Getting angry always wears him out. The lagomorph is comfortable and warm in his spot, so he just leans forward a little (carefully keeping his head tilted back in an effort to avoid Sam’s snout slipping off its spot) to yank the blanket draped over the couch’s other arm and drag it atop the both of them. It occurs to him that Sam skipped dinner, and will probably wake up early tomorrow for breakfast—or, at least, hopefully he will. Much as Max likes making cracks at his partner’s expense, he never really means any of them, and in fact (a secret, hidden fact) hates when other people take it too far. He’s known for a while that Sam doesn’t really have a set eating schedule, neither of them do, but there are days when he’ll barely eat anything. Max might not know a lot but he knows _that_ isn’t healthy. If he thinks back, the only thing Sam ate today was whatever the hell he had for breakfast. Odd that he can do difficult detective work on an empty stomach. Max shakes his head ever so slightly, to shake the thoughts from it like cobwebs from a feather duster; it’s not anything he can help with right now, so it’s best to forget about it. For now.

He shuts off the T.V. and turns a bit, doing his best not to disturb Sam as he tucks himself in with the dog, not willing to wake him up just to go to bed. He sighs, fairly content, and shuffles a little to lean back on Sam more, shutting his eyes. For a while, he listens to his partner snoring, the “tick…tock” sound of that big slow grandfather clock the previous owners of this house left behind, and the ever-so-faint sound of crickets outside the window. It’s nice. Could do with more gunfire or explosions, but you can’t have everything. He drifts off into his usual light sleep filled with surreal dreams that toe the line between the strange and the nightmarish, but he doesn’t have a genuine nightmare tonight.

He wakes up when the phone rings, and Sam snorts awake, startling him a little bit. A weight lifts from his head—he’d forgotten Sam was resting his snout between the lagomorph’s ears, which would explain why that snort was so damn loud—and then he’s dumped to the floor as they both start to yell that classic chant, “I GOT IT! I GOT IT!” Max scrabbles across the floor and he’s almost to the phone when a foot smacks down on his head and Sam effectively steps on him to snatch the phone off its stand with his good arm, lifting it to his head. “Uh-huh? Yep. _Yep_. Al **right**.” He whistles. “Whoo! We’re on our way!”

It’s like poetry. Really bad poetry. But his favorite kind, albeit just because it’s being said by Sam. “Was that the Commissioner?” Max asks, peering up as best he can with a canine foot planted between his shoulder-blades.

“You know it, little buddy!” Sam lifts his foot as he slams the phone back down, then bends down to extend a paw to his partner. Max takes it gratefully and lets the larger canine haul him to his feet, already grinning. “Let’s get going!”

“Can’t we have breakfast first?” Max asks, stomach growling. Sam must be even hungrier given he skipped dinner.

“I guess, if we even _have_ anything.” Sam frowns, thinking, and he saunters to the kitchen with Max at his heels, wondering how the hell the dog isn’t just _starving_ but hey, whatever, right? (It’s _not_ “whatever, right” but Max doesn’t want to think about it long enough to even try to verbalize a question) Luckily, they have a box of cereal hidden away in a cupboard they’ve forgotten to open for who-knows-how-long, and just enough milk left for some mostly-dry cereal. Neither really minds as they’re both the kind who would eat dry cereal anyhow; they settle down at the little table in the kitchen to enjoy their sugar-coated-cardboard-esque cereal together. Sam practically inhales his; though, to Max’s credit, in a shockingly-subtle display of concern for his partner, he’s deliberately eating more slowly to keep Sam from being tempted to leave any of his behind, as he often does in the interest of getting going a bit sooner. That being said, Max’s ‘slower’ pace is still pretty damn fast and, as per usual, terribly messy. His partner just glances over, then picks up a paper towel, folds it a little, and leans over to swipe it across Max’s muzzle. For once his partner actually stops eating for a moment to let him do that, and the dog doesn’t have to worry about getting bitten (as has happened too damn many times in the past… and yet, he doesn’t stop doing this, maybe because he’s stupid or something). “You’re supposed to **eat** your breakfast, not **wear** it, little buddy,” he chastises with a grin.

“Why not both?” Max quips in turn with a little shrug, returning the smile. He doesn’t point out that if he didn’t eat like he’d never seen a utensil in his life, much less a human being eating normally, Sam wouldn’t give him the attention he craves. It should be obvious, by this point, he reasons.

“Because it’s gross?” Sam offers with a raised eyebrow.

“That suits me.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” the dog relents, putting his napkin back down. “Anyways, we should head out now.”

Max surreptitiously glances down to make sure Sam’s bowl is empty before replying with his usual cheery, “Okay!”

* * *

Bullets rain through the sky as Max waves his machine gun, mowing down an entire row of… whatever the hell it is they’re fighting. They’re supposedly tree-people but they’re all soggy and look more like fish most of the time. Either way, they have to go, given they’re threatening the livelihood of the local town and on the verge of becoming a national supernatural phenomenon. Sam, beside him, is busy reloading his revolver with only one good hand, fumbling slightly, but Max knows better than to try and do it for him. He ducks down behind the rock they’re using as cover to do the same. Sharp leaves and sticks rain past them, striking uselessly against the rock whenever they come even remotely close to the Freelance Police. “Jeez, these guys are worse at this than we are!” Max remarks with a grin.

“Good for us, then,” Sam replies, finally getting his gun loaded. The duo sit up (in Max’s case, stand up) to resume firing, watching appreciatively as lichen and moss and wood-chips spatter about with every solid hit. Once Max runs out of bullets he flings to gun as hard as he can, knocking down another one of the creatures. “Jeez, how many of these things are there?”

“It’s like a really soggy zombie horde!” Max comments in a chipper tone, pulling a grenade from his Inventory. He yanks the pin out with his teeth (an ill-advised move), then flings it. It smacks into one of the nearer monsters and falls to the floor; Sam doesn’t see it, but Max sure does, and he grabs hold of Sam’s shoulder—his good shoulder, luckily—and body-slams him to the ground just as the thing detonates, sending a shower of debris right where their faces had been which would’ve resulted in some ugly bruising, at the very least.

“Good catch, little buddy.” Sam comments lightheartedly, looking up at Max.

“Kinda my fault, but whatever.” Max shrugs, moving almost reluctantly to get off of Sam. He peers around the rock only to get snatched up off the ground by one of the beasts. He yelps, hearing Sam shout his name, and immediately he starts flailing, but, unfortunately, the tree monster—well, alright, it’s closer to a swamp monster—has longer arms than him, holding him level with its face but too far away to do much.

It growls at him, staring stupidly at the writhing lagomorph, until Sam barks, “Put him down, or I’ll shoot!” He’s leveling the gun at its head. It turns to stare at him and growls again. “Alright, buddy, you asked for it!” Shots are fired and the specifics of it all are lost when the swamp monster swings Max into the way; it all happens so quickly. Sam drops his gun, the last bullet he fired strikes his partner in the arm, and all the others sink into the monster’s trunk. Sam vaults over the rock as the shrub-creature collapses, shouting Max’s name for the second time in the past ten seconds, springing forward to catch his partner before he can hit the ground. “Max! Max, are you okay?!”

“My arm feels funny.” He answers, a little dazed. Sam turns him a bit, and breathes a sigh of relief when he realizes it’s just a graze.

The moment the tension is gone he just starts repeating “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” over and over again, holding him close as he stands up. The monsters are starting to surround them now, and Sam grips his partner tighter, suddenly wishing he hadn’t dropped his gun in a fit of shock and horror.

“I think I’m alright, Sam,” Max says almost teasingly, reaching up with his other arm to smack his hand over Sam’s mouth. The dog hadn’t even realized he was still mumbling apologies until then; he promptly stops. “I have an idea…” He gets a devilish grin on his face.

“Well, that’s unusual. Care to spill the beans, lest we be ripped limb-from-limb by these bizarre soggy tree-folk?” Sam holds him a little tighter as aforementioned beasts continue to advance on the duo menacingly.

“Throw me.” He sits up a little in Sam’s grip.

The dog gives him a startled look. “You’re hurt!”

“Throw me.” Max repeats, insistently, and Sam sighs. This is some harebrained scheme (pun intended) he’s sure, but, well, they don’t have any other options to consider. He shifts Max into his good hand, then reels back and chucks him as hard as possible straight ahead. He then frantically rummages through his pockets for anything he can use, and comes upon a machete. It’s a little dented and Max put some kind of a bumper sticker on it (now sun-faded and illegible) at some point, but it’s good enough. He grips it in his uninjured hand and drops into a fighting stance, teeth bared, then lunges for a nearby monster.  Beside him, Max’s teeth make short work of the creatures’ wooden torsos, easily snapping them in half with gloriously sickening crunching noises, but Sam doesn’t let his eyes linger too long. He has to focus, distracting though the glorious spectacle of violence that is Max at work may be.

They can do this. They always can.

* * *

They fight much too long into the evening for their liking, and by the time they’re done, they look as though they’re standing in the middle of some sort of lumber mill, both panting and exhausted. Sam lodges the now-definitely-too-dull machete into the last monster with a determined final blow, watching it collapse and standing dead-eyed for a moment, tired enough to fall asleep on the spot. He looks around and sees Max spring off a little pile of wood-chips, beaming tiredly with splinters in his teeth. Almost automatically Sam reaches over to pluck a couple out of Max’s maw with hardly a thought to the potential danger his hand is in, until Max swats his hand away and hops into his arms instead. Sam doesn’t even question it, just straightens up properly and does his best to hold his partner in only one-and-a-half arms. They turn wordlessly, satisfied with their work, and begin the trek back to their trusty Desoto, which they’d had too abandon when the trees got too thick.

They walk in silence (a comfortable one given all the screaming and growling of the battle they just finished) for a while, until, “I got blood on your shirt,” Max says in a resigned tone, taking hold of the stained fabric.

Sam glances down. “It’s alright,” he says in a quiet, sensitive, and tired manner, reaching over to gently pet his partner. Max leans into it, to Sam’s mild surprise, shutting his eyes.

They’re both exhausted, muddy, and a bit bruised. The rabbity creature opens his eyes again and grumbles, “I need a nap.”

“Me too. But we should wash off and bandage up your arm first.” He replies. Max doesn’t answer. He’s staring at the ground silently, expressionless; Sam figures he must just be a little too sleepy.

Crickets chirp around them as Sam trudges back to their car, carrying Max in one arm a bit like a football. Or a small bag of potatoes. Max stares at the dirt road under his partner’s feet as he sways back and forth slightly, only tearing his eyes from it to look up at the lightning-bugs as they start to flit by. His eyes widen slightly. “Hey, Sam, look,” he tugs on the dog’s tie. Sam turns, puzzled, and stares bleary-eyed as thousands of glowing greenish-gold dots ascend from the underbrush to their right, up into the sky, fanning out until they’re spread out like stars. The dog doesn’t stop walking, but he does slow down, slightly in awe. It’s like they’re standing in the middle of a galaxy. And then Max giggles and asks, “Do you think those frogs we saw earlier will eat all of ’em?”

Sam cracks a smile. “It’s definitely gonna be a frog Thanksgiving, little pal.”

They reach the car and Sam hops in, putting Max in his seat. The lagomorph is half-asleep, drowsy from the excitement or maybe the blood loss, and only barely stirs when Sam starts the engine. As he pulls a quick U-turn to head from the swamp back to the land of the living—and their office—he glances over and realizes having Max sitting silently half-slumped over in his seat is a little unnerving in its familiarity. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to look back at the road, brow furrowing, a little nauseated. Doesn’t help that it’s dark out, yet again, but it’s fine. That’s all fine. It’s in the past, isn’t it? And his little buddy is just sleeping this time. It’s alright.

So why doesn’t he feel alright?

He sighs and stops steering for a moment to run a hand across his head, just haphazardly resting his cast on the steering wheel so it doesn’t veer to one side. A tension has settled over his shoulders like an old scratchy blanket, an unpleasantly familiar sort of discomfort. He needs to sleep but that’s when all of this nonsense always starts up again. Mostly.

He decides he needs something to break the silence before things get worse. “Max? You awake, little buddy?”

Max makes a noncommittal noise. Either he is but he doesn’t want to be, or he’s about to start sleep-talking. Both are fine to Sam. He just wants to hear some kind of noise from his little pal.

“I don’t want to fall asleep behind the wheel again.” He continues as he merges without using his turn signal, like some kind of maniac. But that wasn't it. They both knew that wasn't it. If he was really tired, he'd fish the rope and cinderblock out of the backseat. He just can't bear the silence these days.

Max grunts.

“Stunningly brilliant insight, Max.”

That evokes a little snicker and he knows Max is actually awake, just sleepy. He smiles and reaches over with his cast-clad arm as best he can, patting Max’s head. “We’ll be home soon, little buddy. Promise.”

“Good.” Max finally speaks in a yawn. “Throw me in the washing machine and then I’ll fall asleep in the dryer…”

“Yeah, no. However if you won’t clean yourself off then I _will_ dunk you in the tub and towel-dry you until my hand gets tired. Which won’t take long, but, hey, it’s not **my** bunk that’ll be soggy.”

“Fine by me,” Max mumbles.

Sam shoots him a side-eye. “Did you actually hear me?”

He’s met with a snore, and he shakes his head. “You crack me up, Max.”


	6. An Important Call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yahoo this is the chapter that made me write this entire bloody thing i literally drew a scene from this more than a month ago at this point and it’s FINALLY HERE i rly hope y’all like it  
> also, this chapter takes place the day after the last one's events, in case that wasn't clear

The night is still young, technically, but they’ve both turned in early, and Sam is already snoring away a few feet below Max, who absolutely cannot sleep for the life of him. He stares at the ceiling, brow furrowed, thinking back to a time he didn’t get to experience. The whole broken-arm debacle was really just drawing to light something that had been an issue for… a little while now. 

He’s getting too attached. More attached than a best friend and coworker should be. And maybe he’s been a little too attached for a while now, if the events of his reality are anything to go by, but he’d been able to shrug that off after stepping out of the elevator and seeing Sam again. Except now it’s coming back to him. Especially when he heard that sickening awful _crunch_ of Sam’s arm snapping. He completely lost his shit, again—not as much as when he thought Sam was dead, but close. He couldn’t help it. The idea of losing him again was way too much to bear, especially if he’d have to watch him die again. A savage part of his heart is screaming, _No way in hell will I let anyone hurt my partner and get away with it ever again,_ and maybe what worries him most is for once he can’t tell if he likes that or **not**. But this is normal for a partnership like theirs, isn’t it? It’s not like it’s just Max who’s a little touchy about such things; Sam’s always been a little overprotective (or, well, since he got considerably bigger than Max, he has been), and ever since that weird reality-split, Sam had gotten even more and more protective of Max, though not to a stifling degree, of course. Just… unusually more caring. And kind of gentle sometimes. Which Max, for reasons he pretends he can’t fathom, didn’t actually mind. It was nice to be chucked like a grenade one minute, then held delicately in one arm like a head of cabbage the next minute. But still, it was new and unusual, and all things new and unusual ended up getting thought-about, at least a little bit. 

Things are different. Weirder than usual, or maybe just weird by their standards. Max knows Sam better than anyone else, and Sam knows Max better than anyone else could bear to stand. Truth be told, Max doesn’t know how he does it. He might never address it but he knows he’s not the best friend a guy could have, probably not even that great of a person in general, and yet somehow Sam sticks around. And he doesn’t understand why. He’s too scared to ask because maybe, just maybe, if Sam ever stopped to think about it, he wouldn’t actually _want_ to stick around. He’s a charismatic, lovable guy; he could have a good and normal life without his hyperkinetic rabbity pal, and probably be a lot less at risk of serious injury that way. And that would _kill_ Max. He’s had to come to terms with the unpleasant fact that, if it weren’t for Sam, his life would be not just _different_ , but _worse_. **_Horrible_** , even. And if he left then that dreadful empty feeling would come back, and Max wouldn’t have his moral compass anymore. He already knows how abysmally that would end for him. 

At the same time… that doesn’t feel likely at all, not these days. Sure, the concept makes his heart drop into his stomach, but it doesn’t feel realistic in the slightest, somehow. He knows Sam cares about him for some unfathomable reason—cares about him enough that, if his somniloquy is anything to go by, he’s still bothered by what happened to _his_ Max. But what _was_ that? What had happened? He can’t help but feel as though if maybe he had some kind of insight, he could be more helpful. It’s the least he can do. This isn’t _his_ Sam, but he still… 

Asking Sam to relive that trauma would be too much. He’d never want to hurt him (well, okay, unless it was funny) so he’s not about to demand something like that from his partner. He should just shrug it off, roll over and go to sleep, stop staring at the damn ceiling and _thinking_ so much, he doesn’t usually let his brain spin its wheels in his head like this—

It’s weighing on him too much. He sits up, sighing, and hops off his bunk. He needs answers, he needs to know why Sam’s being so protective and muttering in his sleep and he’s pretty certain he knows the root cause but he has to know for _sure_. He pauses to peer at his partner, who’s lying completely still, before tiptoeing out of the room and down the hall to their living room—the place they keep the phone. He knows who he’s going to call before he even gets to the phone; dialing it feels oddly like muscle memory, and he glances around quickly before lifting the phone to his ear. It rings once, twice… There’s a little click.

“Sybil?” Max queries, talking as quietly as he can. Last thing he needs is for Sam to wake up and wonder why the hell he’s on the phone. At least they don’t keep the phone in the bedroom.

“Max?” Sybil sounds completely baffled, and also incredibly tired. “Why on earth are you calling me in the middle of the night?”

“I figured you’d be awake, given the hellsp—uh, the baby.” Max replies flippantly, and Sybil sighs, seemingly too defeated to be annoyed.

There’s a bit of shuffling on the other end, and then a question that doesn’t sound like a question. “What do you want, Max?”

He hasn’t even started asking dumb questions and she already sounds fed-up with him. Now isn’t the best time for the conversation he wants to have, but there’s no other time he’s apart from Sam—and there’s no way he could come up with a viable excuse for the two to be separated anytime soon. Not like he wanted to leave Sam to take a case by himself with a broken arm, anyways, especially given how many close calls they’ve been having. And she’s the only person he really knows who’s good with this whole _emotions_ thing. Dealing with off-kilter nutballs like them—like _him_ —used to be her job, after all. “Sybil,” he begins in a cracking voice, then coughs. Somehow, this is really hard to get out. He drops his volume even lower. “Sybil… What… _happened,_ when I died?”

A lengthy pause follows before she slowly replies, “What do you mean?” 

For a second Max struggles to put words together, muttering to himself before eventually settling on, “Just… tell me what happened.”

“Well, I was out of town for most of whatever happened leading up to it, and then, well, I was a little busy—really, I was only involved for a narrow window of time.” Sybil sounds confused at first but then a suspicious edge enters her voice. “Why don’t you ask Sam? He _lived_ through it.” Max can’t come up with a suitable excuse in time and so she follows that up with an even-more-suspicious, “What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.” He lies quickly, knowing she doesn’t buy it and this conversation is about to veer into psychoanalysis (the horror, the horror!). He’d forgotten how awful this actually felt. “Never mind, Sybil, I forgot what I was asking, good night!”

“ **Hang on** , Ma—” Terrified, he hangs up the phone, taking a step back from it as if it’s about to explode. Stupid. That’s a can of worms he won’t be able to duct-tape shut. Guess he’ll just have to never, ever talk to Sybil again—or hope that she’s too busy with the gross little monster that is her and Abe’s child to remember next time they see each other. Maybe her sleep-deprived brain will assume the whole conversation was a hallucination and he won’t ever have to deal with its repercussions.

He takes a few deep breaths, trying to soothe his nerves, but before he can the shrill ring of the telephone nearly stops his heart and he snatches it from its place, absolutely petrified now. Did the ringing wake Sam up? He stays frozen, hearing a muffled voice from the receiver though it’s pressed to his chest as he stares at the door to the hall joining the living room and bedroom. He counts the half-seconds as heartbeats in his ears, but nothing happens. No sleepy plodding footsteps approach; he does not see a freshly-awoken canine step into view, and slowly he relaxes, but not by much. He finally lifts the phone to his ear and hisses, “Hello?”

“What in the _world_ , Max?” Sybil sounds like she can’t decide whether to be pissed at or worried about him. “What’s going **on** with you?”

“Sybil,” he whispers, “I regret _everything_ _about_ the past fifteen-or-so minutes of my life, and I’d rather just _forget_ this **entire** phone call.”

“Oh, **no** , you don’t.” She snaps. “You **already** woke me up and I’m not about to go to sleep worrying about you, so tell me what’s going on.” 

He twirls the phone cord in one hand, gritting his teeth, gripping the coiled wire in his small paw. He knows if he hangs up, she’s just going to call back again, and if he leaves the line open, she’ll probably hang up and re-dial anyways. “I,” he starts, and he already despises what he’s going to say, “can’t stop thinking about what happened to me. I **thought** I was over it, but I’m not. Sam got hurt while we were on a case and I just—I couldn’t help but remember— **_Urgh_**. I _hate_ it.” 

There’s a short silence but he can practically hear the gears turning in her head. Eventually, she says, in a careful, slow, and measured tone, “Well, you and Sam have always been… close. It makes sense that seeing him hurt would—”

“But that’s not **_it_** ,” he interrupts a little too loud without thinking, then winces, dropping his voice again. “I never used to care—he always used to be okay, anyways. But I just—” His voice dies in the back of his throat. He’s never talked about what happened to _his_ Sam, in the other reality. Hell, even Sybil doesn’t know how weird it is to hear **her** voice again, when he thought he never would. He hasn’t told anyone. He’s never spoken about it, just swept it under the rug, but he’s underestimated the size of the mess and now he keeps stumbling over it when he’s wandering around for a metaphorical midnight snack. It’s getting inconvenient and it seems as though every time he passes, the lump under the rug gets bigger, like it has a life of its own and it’s gonna come out of hiding at some point, and then _he’ll_ be the midnight snack. 

“You just _what_ , Max?” She pries gently. 

He shakes his head, then remembers she can’t see him. “I really, really **don’t** want to talk about it.” 

There’s an exasperated sigh, barely heard through the telephone line, and he knows she’s getting more annoyed. He really wishes she’d just hang up and go to bed already, but she keeps trying, keeping her voice calm and kind and professional, despite no longer being a professional. “At some point, you’re going to have to. It’s not healthy to keep everything all bottled up.”

“Nothing about our lifestyle is _healthy_ , Sybil.” He quips, hoping that’ll deter her from prying any further.

It doesn’t. “I wouldn’t say ‘nothing’... but anyways. Sooner or later, it’s all going to come out, Max, whether you want it to or not.”

That sounds vaguely expository and almost threatening. Max furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Have you ever kept a secret from Sam before?”

“Of **course** I have, Sybil. We’re _coworkers_ , not _conjoined_ _twins_ or something.” He scoffs as quietly as he can, still eyeing the doorway to the hall.

He’d swear he hears her mutter something like “As if you could tell the difference” but before he can say anything on that, she continues, “Have you ever kept a secret this _big_ from Sam before?” His mouth snaps shut and he gives the hallway a sour stare. No, he hasn’t, but he doesn’t want to think about that. She accurately reads his silence as an admission, and a nearly smug tone enters her voice. “I figured as much.”

“Shut up.” He grumbles, grinding his teeth together. 

“You should try and air this out, Max.” She suggests gently. “Try to talk ab—”

“No.” He cuts in.

“Max,” she starts in a more admonishing tone, but he doesn’t let her continue.

“No way, Sybil. We just—We don’t **do** that.” He says stubbornly. 

Her patience is wearing thin. “ **Fine**. If you want, you can just let this rift in your frankly sickening codependency get bigger and ultimately **destroy** your partnership. But don’t say I didn’t **warn** you, and don’t bite me when I say ‘I told you so.’”

With that, she hangs up, leaving an absolutely astonished Max frozen, mouth half-open, clutching the phone so hard his knuckles would turn white were he naturally any other colour than white. Slowly he regains control of his stiff limbs, and shakily puts down the phone, staring straight ahead for a minute. That rattled him. That really, really rattled him. She sounded almost as angry as his Sybil, Past-Sybil, before… 

He feels sick, or maybe something else, he can’t even tell; he takes a half-pace back and gives the phone a terrified stare. He really hadn’t expected one phone call to blast a hole in his unhealthy coping mechanisms, but here we are. He feels kinda shaky and nauseated. He decides a snack could maybe calm his nerves—well, alright, he’s lying to himself, but the longer he stares at the phone, the worse he feels, so he heads to the kitchen. A Glazed McGuffin or two wouldn’t be remiss right about now; that way, he could go to sleep with indigestion instead of anxiety. He chucks a couple in his mouth, not even bothering to shut the fridge door as he does so, just standing there plucking them from the box, then meanders off, leaving the door to slowly swing shut as it usually does. Chewing thoughtfully, he wanders back to the bedroom, easing the door open as quietly as possible.

Sam snores peacefully, broken arm against his chest, as is the norm for now. He hasn’t even moved since Max left the room, thankfully, and the lagomorph carefully shuts the door, eyeing his partner cautiously to be sure he won’t wake up. The snoozing dog doesn’t stir at all, and Max prances over softly as he can, avoiding creaky floorboards, then lightly hops up into bed with him. The jostling doesn’t wake Sam up, either, though he does snort like he’s almost waking up, and Max freezes for a second, alarmed, but then the dog snores again and he breathes a silent sigh of relief. He wriggles under the covers beside him, curling up next to Sam, but it takes him a long, long time of listening to his partner’s snoring before they drown out his manic thoughts, leaving his head quiet enough for sleep.

He wakes up after quite a pleasant nap devoid of night-terrors to something petting him gently. He gradually drifts back into consciousness from wherever he was before to realize he’s lying half-on-top of… something soft, pleasantly dough-y, with what feels like a brick draped over his back. It’s lovely. He keeps his eyes shut, wondering if he’ll be able to just go back to sleep, or at least rest for a moment, enjoy it. He doesn’t put two and two together until he hears Sam say, “I **know** you’re awake, Max,” in an almost teasing tone, and it sounds strange to hear his voice reverberating in his chest. It sort of rumbles a bit more.

Max forces one eye open, lifting his head a little ways. Sam is smiling down at him warmly, gently kneading his head with his uninjured arm. The broken one is responsible for the feeling of a brick being draped over him. He lets his head fall back down onto his partner’s chest. “Comfy,” he replies sleepily, grinning as Sam chuckles. 

“We have to get up, little buddy. We might have another case today.” 

“Five more minutes?” 

“Nope.” Sam sits up, expecting his partner to flop off of him like a soggy piece of white bread, but Max clings to him. He’s staying there for five more minutes, no matter what Sam wants, and after a moment’s confusion the dog just shrugs and stands up. His stomach growls, so he heads for the kitchen, then starts rummaging through the cabinets, half-holding Max with his broken arm (more using it to keep gravity from tugging him down and consequently stretching out a perfectly good nightshirt; the lagomorph has quite a strong grip). After a while, Max slowly, grudgingly lets go, and Sam drops him to the floor, not paying any attention. Max shoots him an annoyed look, but it goes unnoticed; sighing, he wanders out of the kitchen, not particularly interested in breakfast. He feels oddly… listless? Is that even a real word? Some part of him is out-of-sorts and he’s not happy about it, so he’s going to be a grouch, even if he knows why he’s upset and what, exactly, he could do to fix it. His mind tries to drift back to his conversation with Sybil, but he refuses to let it, much as it tugs at his psyche’s hands and points insistently at the memory like a child doing their damnedest to point out an ice-cream shop across the street in hopes of getting their parent to go buy some. He plops down on the ground in front of the television, tuning it to early morning cartoons in the hopes that they’ll cheer him up instead. At the very least they oughta numb his brain for a while. He’s not delving into _introspection_ (gag) so early in the morning.

After a few minutes, a bowl of cereal is shoved in his hands, and he glances up to see Sam grin down at him cheerfully. He’s balancing his own bowl on his cast, very precariously, and Max smiles back, mood lightening a fair bit. It’s a sweet gesture, and he appreciates it. They watch TV and enjoy their breakfast in a comfortable silence, and when Max has guzzled his whole bowl of cereal he plunks it down on the ground, then climbs up into his partner’s lap with no explanation. Sam blinks at him in surprise, putting his half-full bowl down on the little table beside the couch. “Gee, you’re awful **cuddly** today, Max. What gives?” Even as he says so, he loops an arm around his partner, more than happy to keep him there.

“Nothing,” Max lies, settling in. Something in his tone catches Sam’s attention, and he scrutinizes the lagomorph for a moment. He’s staring at the TV, but it’s like he isn’t quite seeing it, mind entirely elsewhere. That isn’t entirely unusual, but typically morning cartoons have him sitting upright at rapt attention, so, it’s strangely timed to say the least. 

Sam hums, and Max’s ear twitches with annoyance, but he doesn’t comment on it. “Are you sure?” He lifts his good hand, prodding the side of his partner’s head.

“Yeah.” Max shakes his head a little and pushes Sam’s hand away. The dog shrugs, pats the lagomorph on the head twice, then relaxes into the couch, content to let that be all… for now. He picks up his bowl again, having decided to finish it, actually. Max leans into him, oddly quiet still, and once Sam is done with his cereal he moves the bowl back to the table nearby again, then casually tugs Max a bit closer, looping his good arm around him. Almost out of impulse, he leans over slightly and licks the back of his head, behind an ear, earning a startled little shiver from his partner and a peal of giggles, followed quickly by swatting his muzzle away and yelling, “Ew, gross, Sam!” 

“You should shower, you taste almost as bad as you smell,” Sam quips, sticking his tongue out in mock disgust. 

“ _Nobody_ asked you to do that, ya doof,” the lagomorph rubs the back of his head, pretending to be disgruntled. 

“Nobody asks me to do anything except the Commissioner. Speaking of which, he should be calling sometime soon.” Sam looks over at the phone like he expected it to ring the moment he was done talking.

Silence.

Max glances between his partner and the phone. Nothing happens for an uncomfortable amount of time before Sam finally shrugs and settles back down. “Maybe he’ll call in the afternoon.” 

Once again, Max finds himself hoping the contrary, and also finds himself upset with that fact. If Sam notices the sullen cloud lurking about the lagomorph’s skull, he doesn’t comment on it, but he _is_ unusually gentle this morning, silently petting his partner between the ears as they while away the time watching television. Even once their telephone rings, Sam chucks Max onto the couch with an unusual sort of caution before racing for the phone with Max nipping at his heels—literally. Sam keeps Max at bay with one outstretched foot, pinning him to the wall, as he has many a time before. “Hellllloo!” Sam greets cheerfully. “Commissioner! … Yes, of course. Yep, uh-huh, alright! We’re on our way!” He slams the phone back down.

“Where are we headed now, Sam?” Max asks, finally seeming entirely his old self again. 

And so Sam launches into his usual long-winded spiel detailing today’s case, but Max isn’t really listening. He just can’t bring himself entirely out of his own head today. But Sam doesn’t need to know that, so he keeps a smile plastered on his face even as his anxious mind ruminates over far less pleasant things than whatever case they have today.


	7. Putting the Pieces Together

The time has passed like a kidney stone. In the last two weeks, Max’s gunshot-wound (which, thankfully, is mostly healed by now, beneath a simple bandage) was joined by a whole host of bumps, scrapes, and scratches; nearly every case they’ve been on has ended up putting the duo in much more danger than usual, and the lagomorph is at his wits end, to be honest. He’s been more jumpy than normal—not in his typical fun manner either—and Sam, too, is running out of patience with both his broken arm and Max’s sudden onset emotional frailty, as well as his tendency to chuck himself between Sam and potential danger in a far more protective manner than is typical. The dog doesn’t really like feeling like he’s being sheltered and, of course, is equally less-than-fond of the ensuing oh-god-don’t-get-hurt- _please_ heart attack. It sucks. He never used to be this alarmed by his little buddy flinging himself headlong into dangerous situations but, in his defense, prior to this he had two functioning arms to save his partner with. Well, usually. 

Something isn’t quite right about all of this. It’s unusual for them to be in such dire straits so often. Usually the hair-raising terror of almost losing their lives is brief, arising from a comically-inept villain somehow bumbling their way into being truly threatening, if only for a split second. How is it that they’ve managed to find themselves in these dangerous situations day after day—or nearly so? 

All that and more is running through Sam’s head as he stands over the papers from their last few cases, strewn about over their office’s desk. He has his serious face on, good hand pressed to his chin as he thinks, sleeves rolled up and jacket draped over the chair. Max has been meandering around the office making amusing non-sequitur comments all evening, which Sam is only barely paying attention to. The gears in his head are turning too loudly to hear properly. There’s a through-line, he knows there has to be, he just needs to find it. Pour the sand of information into the pan, shake it through until that little chunk of gold is left behind… 

Max stops wandering to just stare at Sam for a moment. It’s late. The night is dark, sky a voidlike moonless black, clouded over—it will rain later tonight—and the only light is the weak overhead bulb they need to replace (but Sam won’t let Max do it and apparently it’s a two-paw job) plus the desk lamp pointed down at the papers Sam is poring over, one hand on the table, head tilted, ears dangling down and a serious, thoughtful look on his face. Something is tugging at him, clearly, but Max can’t possibly fathom what. He just wishes the dog would acknowledge his jokes already. Things didn’t used to be like this and Sybil’s words creep up on him again.  _At some point, you’re going to have to talk about it… or you can just let this rift in your frankly sickening codependency get bigger and ultimately_ **_destroy_ ** _your partnership._ He knows Sam has been getting a little weirded-out, for lack of a better term, by how bothered Max is when seeing him hurt, and he wonders briefly if tonight’s silent treatment is part of that. He finds himself questioning if they need some space—something he never would have asked himself a mere year ago. Before Sam died—Before he killed Sam. _His_ Sam. The fact that he’s even considering this makes him feel like he’s just shoved an entire pizza down his throat and is waiting to see if he’ll vomit or not. 

He walks up to the other side of the desk and eyes Sam, wondering how it came to be that they felt too far away from each other. His brow is furrowed and he’s looking from one paper to another to another, clearly putting some form of two and two together. Slowly. It can be kinda fun to watch him think, puzzling something out, so long as it doesn’t take forever and Max isn’t at risk of anything. His pensive face is attractive, even, a bit of a different side to him than usual. Abruptly the dog seems to realize his partner is just staring silently at him and he glances over at Max, contemplative look vanishing. It’s surprising how quickly his face can change, hard lines melting away into that open trusting expression the lagomorph has grown to expect of the lovable dope that is his partner. That had stayed consistent, at least. “What’s up, little buddy?”

“Nothing.” Max replies only semi-truthfully. He knows (assumes) he’s just a distraction right now, and he pulls away from the desk, taking his paws off the lip of it where he’d rested his chin to stare at the dog. “I… think I’m gonna go for a walk while you work.”

“Really?” Sam blinks in surprise. “Isn’t it dark ou—”

Max is already at the door. “It’s a pretty night.” He doesn’t offer a further explanation as he slips out, feeling Sam will be grateful to think alone for a little while, without Max being annoying or staring creepily at him.

  Sam gazes at the door for a second, then shrugs, going back to his work. He’s conflicted; part of him is glad for a little time away from Max, who’s been getting a bit clingy (which brings up a whole other issue of conflicting feelings) lately, but the other part is worried for him. He rarely wants to just go for a walk, at any point in time, let alone walk around by himself. He’s going to get in trouble—that’s a given, it’s _Max_ , after all—but even though he can usually handle himself, given their track record lately, the idea of him walking all by his lonesome in the dark city is concerning. Even though Sam is the one with a broken arm he hasn’t been able to rule out the possibility of Max being targeted by whoever is doing all of this. They might just have poor aim. This would be a good opportunity for them… but Max can take care of himself. Probably. And if he wants some rarely-needed alone-time, Sam isn’t one to encroach on that, much as he might be paranoid enough to want to. 

So he returns to his work.

And his resolve lasts maybe fifteen minutes at a most generous count before he’s at the window, peering out, looking to see if Max is down there. He sees nothing, no one—this side of the city, hardly anyone goes out after sundown unless they’re up to something nefarious—and now he has to decide if he’s going to go follow Max and risk getting bitched-at just for being worried, or let himself stew in his concerns until his partner comes home safe. Whenever that will be. He looks up at the sky, eyeing the vaguely purplish hues of the gathering clouds, before sighing and pulling his head back in, turning around again, but a lot less happy now.

* * *

The night air is crisp with pollution and a faint breeze from the north, bringing with it a slight chill. For a city in summer, at least. Really, it just felt neutral. Bearable. Perfect for Max to completely ignore the weather and his surroundings as he plods along, monotonously walking, the sensation of concrete beneath his feet a sort of white noise for his hyperkinesis. 

He’s thinking, again. Staring up at the sky. Remembering the last time he was staring at the sky, lost in thought. His eyes had hurt a lot by the end of that day. Whether it be from straining them in desperation for a sign that his partner was still alive—miraculously hadn’t died in that explosion that was much too far off to enjoy—or from the tears they were holding back, he couldn’t say. In the days after, when he tried to convince himself there was still hope, he’d spent a lot of time burning a hole in that particular patch of sky with his eyes. 

You know what had been really funny?

It had been Sam’s birthday. When he came back, anyways. 

Of course, he couldn’t tell if _this_ Sam’s birthday was on the same day. If it was, he didn’t say anything; it’s not like Max had anything prepared, anyways, so there would be no point. He’d have to wait and figure it out. Like so, so many other things.

They felt like puzzle pieces. Mutilated puzzle pieces. They’d fit, once before, but they went through a rough move where the box they were in endured poorly-maintained storage and now they’re bent-up and waterlogged and a little burnt, too. The image isn’t complete without them, but now it looks wrong. Even if they _did_ fit together, it would still never look the same. Tarnished. Darker than before. _Wrong_.

He’d ask what he did to deserve this but he knows damn well he’s done more than enough in his life to invite something like this. But Sam? _His_ Sam, and, it seems, by extension, _this_ Sam? He can’t imagine. He just hopes the ache that’s been rattling around in his ribcage since his Sam’s brain was first stolen isn’t a shared pain. Sam doesn’t deserve that. 

Max may be a bit… _shortsighted_ , in terms of thinking, but he’s not stupid. He knew the moment he saw Sam’s head so terrifyingly empty that things were never going to end well. Some part of him knew, at least. The sick feeling in his gut hadn’t gone away—it still rests in the pit of his stomach, even, like a little pebble. Smaller than before but still here. It hadn’t been fair. Sam had been pretty gleeful about being ‘the chosen one’ for once, it was just so cosmically foul that this time, this one time the dog was the special one, was the time that it marked him for death—at the hands of the lagomorph he trusted most, nonetheless. Max will always be haunted by the spectre of that fact, in some manner, and he hates it so much. 

The lagomorph tears his eyes from the clouds overhead when one big rabbity foot stubs its toe against an uneven patch of pavement and he stumbles, yelping out a swear as he regains his balance, furious for a second before it just melts away in a drained sigh. This sucks, but moping doesn’t do anything, and he knows that. This Sam will never be _his_ Sam but dammit, it’s _a_ Sam, and he selfishly doesn’t want to be alone again. It feels ugly to _settle_ like this, but he’s already made his choice. He’d wanted to die in his reality and, in a way, this is perhaps his penance for that. But maybe things will settle down soon and he won’t still be torn up by having existed in the duality of being desperate to die and desperate to reclaim his old life, whatever it took. 

Part of him wonders if Sybil ( _this_ Sybil) really was right. Maybe he _should_ talk to Sam about this. Would it make the poisonous feeling in him go away? Or would he just feel guilty, telling his partner _you don’t feel like you_ right to his face? Would Sam feel rejected? Would he leave? How would he feel if Sam said the same to _him_? It really burns him up inside. No… No, it’s better not to talk about it. He doesn’t want to know if Sam sees him the same way. It’ll go away eventually. It’ll all settle down. It always has. It always will. It has to.

He hasn’t noticed that he’s started walking again until, abruptly, he isn’t, and suddenly gravity isn’t working—that is, until he’s slammed into a brick wall, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs, vision blurring briefly before he regains himself to the sensation of an unpleasantly leathery hand pressed to his fuzzy bunny torso. A greasy man in a greasier hat atop even more greasy blackish-brown hair grins a snaggletoothed smile at the lagomorph pinned between him and the brick wall via an outstretched arm and one nice shiny switchblade, unreasonably shiny for so gross-looking a human. “Nice of you to take this little walk. What, did he send you out for midnight snacks?” 

“No,” Max sneers, then adds, without thinking about how unwise it is to let this strange man know that Sam has no idea when Max will be home, “I just decided to go for a walk. Can’t a guy go for a walk?” 

“Of course.” The crook says in the most understanding tone, before continuing wickedly, “But, he might not _want_ to when we’re trying to kill his **best friend**.”

“Huh?” It takes Max a second to put two and two together but when he does, his eyes widen, flashing white. “Oh no.”

“Damn, you’re _dense_.” The man scoffs. “How do you manage to avoid every death trap we’ve set for you two, and _not_ realize we’re trying to kill him?”

The lagomorph falls silent, gritting his teeth as a cool, icy rage washes over him, hackles rising. His hands clench as he straightens up to lock eyes with this knife-wielding human who suddenly looks a lot less enthused. The entire atmosphere has changed; Max is in control now despite the knife pressed to his throat. His eyes flick down to it, then back up at the human, narrowing. “I’ll give you **one** chance to step back.” He says calmly, too calmly, keeping steady eye contact. His eyes have a strange glossed-over look to them but his aggressor doesn’t seem to pick up on it, behaving suddenly flippant. Performatively so, but still.

Somehow Max’s threat appears to embolden the scoundrel, who scoffs again and presses the blade more firmly to the rabbit’s neck, drawing blood, trying to reassert dominance. “It’s more likely that we’ll be eating hasenpf—”

Max’s paws snap up, yanking the knife away from his throat by way of snapping the forearm before it and shoving the blade into the thug’s cheek, though it doesn’t stay there long. He yanks it back out, shutting his eyes briefly to keep from getting blood in them, before slashing at the crook who is now doing his damnedest to get away from him. Ordinarily he’d chase them down and _really_ make them pay, but he’s way too worried about Sam and instead opts to fling the knife at the idiot’s leg, striking it dead-on (of course) before turning and sprinting the way he came, back to their office, panicking all the while. 

As the city lights blur, zipping past him, he starts to think of all the ways things could have gone wrong back at the Freelance Police HQ, and all the things he’ll do to whoever it is that’s aiming to kill Sam. Unfortunately, the dread overwhelms his desire to plan out his vengeance, and he quickens his pace as much as he can without falling flat on his face. The office, thankfully, comes into view before he can further agonize, and he crosses the street without even looking, just narrowly avoiding becoming roadkill. He springs up the steps and slams the door open, screaming with the last of the air in his lungs, “Sam!” He sucks in a quick deep breath and launches himself at the stairs, carrying on, “Sam! Sam! Are you okay?!” With every step awful visions of his partner injured, dying, tortured play before his eyes so he rounds the corner at the first leg of the stairs in an absolute panicked frenzy—

And sees Sam sitting at the top of the stairs with his ears perked and his mouth half-open like he was about to yell back. Relief overwhelms the lagomorph so much that he barely even realizes he’s practically soaring through the air towards Sam. He lands right in his arms (well, _arm_ —the broken one still can’t do much) and immediately wraps his own arms as much around Sam as he can, crushing him in his grip, practically melting into the embrace. He hopes his adrenaline-shivering isn’t too obvious. He’s never been happier to see him (he thinks so, anyway) and that’s saying something.

“What happened to you?!” Sam gasps, gentle paws pushing Max away from him to get a good look at the rabbit. Max leans back but puts his hands on Sam’s knees to keep some kind of contact, more to convince himself the dog won’t vanish than much else. Not that he really has to do that, as Sam’s hands ghost over his side in a concerned manner.

It’s around then that Max remembers he’s somewhat covered in blood, some of which is now on Sam’s shirt, too (oops). “Oh! Don’t worry, it isn’t mine,” he reassures cheerfully, grinning as he watches Sam’s eyes skate over his form regardless. It’s sweet that he cares so much, even if—It suddenly occurs to Max that Sam doesn’t have any obvious reason to be sitting on the stairs, and he lifts a hand to hold Sam’s face, peering at it, “You’re okay?”

 “Yeah,” Sam smiles and Max isn’t sure if he’s going to melt from relief or from how sunny that grin is. “Someone shot into our office, but…they’re a worse shot than _we_ are.” He chuckles for a moment before sobering again, glancing at the blood-splatters, then reiterating the question he asked before, which Max hadn’t really answered. “What happened to **you**?”

Max waves flippantly, “Some guy with a knife tried to jump me. Didn’t go well for him.” He grins wickedly, remembering how quickly he took the idiot down. Satisfying, to say the least.

Sam suddenly seems to be thinking, gears turning in his head, brow furrowing. It’s a look Max loves to see because it’s almost always followed by some kind of seemingly-brilliant goofy observation. Unfortunately though, this time it’s just a rather suspicious, “Why’d you come racing back here, then?”

Max’s brain whirls through a kaleidoscope of things to say before settling on lying by omission and stating, “Got a bad feeling, is all.” He quickly carries on to add, “Glad to see you’re okay!”

Sam gets that thoughtful look again but it goes away quickly as he scans Max over once more, and then he shifts his good hand to pat Max on the back gently. “I’m glad you’re okay, too,” he replies kindly; once more, the lagomorph feels like he might dissolve. But then Sam carries on, “I’m not sure it’s safe to go back into the office,” he pauses, thinking again, “or outside, either, now that I think about it.”

Max gets an idea. “I’ll go in, and—”

Sam shuts him down posthaste. “No, you will **not** ,” he growls, shooting his partner a look. _The_ Look. He’s not going to budge on this whatsoever, not even reasonably.

Max’s temper flares slightly, more out of sudden alarm that Sam’s going to head back in instead of him. “Well, **you’re** not going in first, either!” He snaps, almost surprising himself—he rarely tells Sam what to do, at least not seriously. But he means it this time and they both know it, just like when he insisted on driving Sam to the hospital. Hopefully once his arm’s better Max will stop acting so disgustingly responsible.

The dog dons his pensive face again and Max watches, waiting patiently. He’ll come up with a plan, he always does. It might not be the best plan, but it’ll be his—theirs. Max rarely even questions him, after all. Finally he suggests, “Maybe we can wait them out.”

Max leans back slightly, raising an eyebrow at his partner. “I’m **not** going to sit here all night,” he scoffs.

And then Sam has a brilliant idea—one Max will surely agree to. “If we leave through the back door, we can get ice cream,” he offers, “ _then_ see if they’re still here.” The back door is rarely used by them due to its sheer inconvenience in their lives, but, well, a little inconvenience is better than a lot of lead-shell casings... 

Max scrutinizes him. Sam’s smiling a little too hopefully, almost sweating, and so Max gives him a hard stare. “You’re just hungry, aren’t you?” He deadpans, and Sam gives him the sort of grin that would be accompanied by the wagging tail of one very enthusiastic dog aiming to charm its recipient into doing as he pleases. Max sighs, pretending to be annoyed, if only to cover how much he’s having to resist the impulse to kiss that grinning muzzle. It doesn’t last long, quickly replaced by the emphatic cheer of a rabbity thing who desperately wants to forget that he’s just learned someone’s painted a target on the back of the one person he actually cares about, let alone the agonizing familiarity of the situation. “Okay! Let’s go.”

* * *

As Max had been taking his little stroll about town, Sam had resigned himself to standing in front of the desk again, and he does so completely oblivious to the bullet that whizzes into the open window and out through a hole in the wall. It passes silently but not so silent is the swear snarled across the street—but he’s too caught-up in his head to notice. His legs are tired, so, he sits down just in time to avoid a second bullet smashing through the thin drywall behind him and whizzing through the air roughly where his head had been. That, too, he doesn’t pick up on. He rubs his chin as he keeps looking at the papers, trying to force his mind back into a work mindset. But it’s difficult—the feng shui of the room is wrong now. It needs a fuzzy white form pacing around aimlessly in his periphery, adding to the white noise of the city with footsteps and endearing, violent chatter. That’s the only way he can focus, really, (though he won’t admit it,) but again he doesn’t want to track down his little buddy and put him in a worse mood. He’s already been in a weird funk lately; no sense in aggravating it. As he turns and leans back in his chair a third bullet whizzes into the room and this one he takes note of, as it streaks right past his nose and sinks into the wall opposite, right next to one of his favorite photos of the two of them. He yelps, startled, flinching back, and the chair slips under him, sending him tumbling to the floor, his hat comically floating down after him to catch up. He lies frozen on the ground for a second, heartbeat in his ears, unsure of just what’s going on. A fourth bullet—by his perception, the second—hurtles through their office at about the same height as the last, and he starts to try and think of a way out of this. Clearly, he’s being shot-at, and whoever is shooting can’t see him right now, so he has a pretty good chance of getting out unharmed. Problem is, he’s not entirely sure if he should try and get a look at the perpetrator, or just army-crawl the hell out of the office and hope they can track this person down later. One way or another he knows he doesn’t want Max to walk in on this and get caught in the crossfire. The mental image that concept conjures up chills him to the bone. 

It’s better, he decides, to crawl out of the office and stop Max from going back in whenever he returns. Hiding out in the stairwell will probably be alright. He rolls onto his stomach and shoves the chair out of the way, hoping it isn’t broken or something, then starts to do his best to crawl over to the door without being seen through the window. He reaches it, paws it open (thank God Max left it ajar in his usual thoughtlessness), and a bullet crashes through the glass window on the door bearing their names. He shuts his eyes and shields his face as glass rains down; the second it’s done falling he scampers into the hall on all fours. No further shots are fired, but they likely know he’s gone—or that Max came back, if they’d known he left at all.

That revelation puts a bit of a chill in his bones again. Had they known he left? Is he being targeted as well, somewhere in the city, alone? They were foolish to split up—that’s what every idiot they’d booked the past half-month had been trying to get them to do, and then they went and did it willingly! How could they be so stupid?! He growls quietly at himself, running a hand over his head. He can’t go out on the street. They were clearly firing from some building across the street, the same direction Max probably left by—unless he went out the back door for whatever reason—He’d get a bullet in his brains long before he could find Max. He just has to sit and wait and chew his knuckles and hope to whatever god or gods there may be that his little buddy doesn’t turn up in tomorrow’s Obituaries. He sits down near the top of the stairs, now far enough away from their office to probably not get shot. He’s torn between wishing Flint Paper were here so they could chat and being incredibly grateful Flint Paper has vanished into thin air for whatever case he’s on—at least _he_ isn’t in danger too.

He just has to wait it out. Just sit… and wait… in tense silence… knowing full well that even if Max comes back there’s a decent chance he’ll get shot on the street in front of their very office building… 

He feels sick and his knuckles taste gross.

Fortunately he doesn’t have to wait for more than half an hour before the front door explodes in a flurry of movement and yelling, and when Max crashes into his arms he feels a wave of relief wash over him, a harmony of physical and emotional sensation. He hugs Max tightly for a moment, only so long as he can allow himself, before letting go and forcing himself to carry on business-as-usual. Check to ensure his partner is safe, briefly explain why he’s sitting at the top of the stairs, suggest ice cream because now that the adrenaline has worn off his stomach is growling at him. For a moment he swears he sees an unfamiliar emotion flicker through Max’s eyes before he relents to ice cream and they trudge down the stairs together; Sam again exercises his immense self-restraint by not scooping Max into his arms to placate the anxious part of his mind now screaming at him that Max will vanish between blinks. Lucky for him his cheery chatterbox of a partner is yattering on about something-or-other and the unmistakable white noise of his voice does wonders for the dog’s nerves. 

He just smiles at the appropriate moment and says, in a tone he hopes isn’t too warm, “You crack me up, little buddy.”


	8. Think About It...

They’re walking back to the office, post-ice cream, Sam lapping at a triple-scoop cone and Max just sort of staring at his, watching the chocolate drip down his fuzzy white paw. He has to tell Sam. He has to let the dog know that someone wants him dead. But he’s feeling this odd protective impulse, to not tell him, to find it out on his own and make whoever-it-is pay for even thinking they’d be allowed to put him in danger, let alone kill him. It’s stupid, he knows—they’re grown adults! Sam can take care of himself! Villains do this all the time!—but he can’t shake it. Maybe it rises from some sense of guilt—of **owing** _this_ Sam for killing the _other_ one. But he really, really doesn’t want to think about it that way, even if it’s an ugly truth staring him right in the eyes. 

Sam, of course, is well aware that something is troubling the usually-hyperactive lagomorph, but he can’t really fathom what that could be. It’s likely not the guy with the knife who jumped him, as he _obviously_ won in that altercation (duh), and it’s probably not even the person shooting into their office, as he doubts Max even remembers that by now. He’d been happy as a clam when they left for ice cream, after all. Sam tilts his head to one side, eyeing his partner. He’s been acting weirder and weirder lately. An observation the dog has had multiple times, but, still, it bears repeating, as it hasn’t gone away. He’s moody. Quiet. Downright _pensive_ at times. It’s not right—or maybe it wasn’t right for _his_ Max. Maybe for _this_ Max, spells of quiet thought aren’t abnormal. But, well, asking can’t hurt, after all.

“You okay, Max?” He questions quietly, and the lagomorph snaps to attention, looking over at him.

“Of course, Sam!” His nose twitches, a fatal tell. He can bluff his way past anyone except Sam. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

He’s lying. The dog knows it. Sometimes little things don’t change. He licks his ice cream cone, then gestures to Max’s. “Because you’re letting your Rocky Road pour all over your paws like it’s the world’s slowest chocolate fountain?” He points out not unkindly, with one eyebrow raised.

Max looks at his hand as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh,” is all he can manage. Sam stays quiet, knowing—hoping—that Max will open up if he needs to.

But Max doesn’t. He just keeps staring at his hand. “Something bothering you?” Sam pries gently. 

Max looks back at him and his face sort of… twists. Sam almost asks if he’s going to throw up or who-knows-what but then Max blurts, “I think someone’s trying to _kill_ you.”

There’s something about the bluntness of it all that completely robs the statement of any alarm it could cause. Sam doesn’t break his stride, just blinks at him, then licks his ice cream cone again. “ _Well_ , that would certainly explain the piss-poor sharpshooting in our office. Is that what was—” He cuts off one epiphany with another, possibly less-important one— “Hang on, what makes you think it’s just _me_?”

Max wants to make some quip about being indestructible, but his mouth goes dry at the thought. He takes a bite out of his ice cream to remedy the problem, and Sam pretends not to wince at having seen that. “That’s what he said.”

“What _who_ said?”

“The guy who tried to _stab_ me.” Max says nonchalantly, entirely back to normal (by appearances, at least; his jaw seems, by his perception, to be wobbling like it’s made of jelly, something in his chest feels terribly wrong and he can’t tell if his words are as steady as he’d like them to be). “It’s why all our cases lately go the same—you and I get _separated_ , we almost _die_ , we cheat death by the _skin of our teeth_ …” He’d praise himself for keeping the tremor out of his voice if it weren’t for the fact that it travels to his hands, and he has to gesture vaguely with his ice cream cone, flinging little droplets of it everywhere, to hide that fact.

“Huh.” Sam adopts his pensive look again, and suddenly it seems that two and two finally makes four, as his face abruptly goes slack. “...I think we should get back to the office, little buddy.” His tone is grim, and it takes Max right back to the dark anxious place he’d kidded himself into thinking he’d just left.

His head whips around to look at his partner. “You’ve solved the case?” He asks hopefully, praying it’s just that and not something darker that he’s unaware of.

“In a sense.” Sam answers vaguely, quickening his pace. That doesn’t bode well, in Max’s opinion. “If I’m right, our office should be fine now—they’ll be onto their next plan. Probably.”

“If you get shot I’m not crying over your dead body again.” Max then shoves his ice cream cone _and_ his hand into his mouth.

“You crack me u—” Sam starts to chuckle and then his brain catches up with him and he freezes, a cold feeling in his gut (not from the ice cream… probably)— “ **Again**?”  

 Max scurries ahead of him, mouth too full to answer (something he most certainly did on purpose having just realized what he admitted to), and Sam resigns himself to having maybe misheard, shaking off the unease to chase after Max at a power-walk. He skips to one side when his partner yanks his hand back out of his mouth and shakes it off. Sam, once again, decides to do his best to pretend he didn’t see that, lest he gag. 

They reach the office, and, luckily, are not shot-at. Sam does peer uneasily at the building across the street, but it is silent and skeletal as ever, windows vacant as they have been for months now. Nobody wants to live near their workplace, after all, and normal office hours have long since ended. Max scrabbles up the stairs with Sam plodding along after him, keeping an eye on his little buddy as best he can. He reaches the top of the stairs to see Max standing in front of the office door, staring down at the remnants of the door’s window with a strange, mask-like expression on his face. Null, void, unreadable. “Oh, yeah,” Sam says cheerfully, ignoring the creeping unease as Max fixes him with that same stare, coloured slightly with curiosity, “I forgot, that broke when I slipped out. Guess we’ll have to fix that or something.” 

Then Max asks something almost surprising, in an odd, quiet voice, “Did it hurt you?”

Sam tries not to smile too widely as a little fluttery feeling comes alive in his chest. “No, I’m fine.” He then jokingly adds, “Sorry to disappoint!”

“Not funny, Sam.” Max replies in a blunt, flat tone, stepping into the office and peering around. No gunshots are heard ringing out, though Max strains his ears unnecessarily for them.

Sam wilts a little, startled and sheepish. “Heh, sorry, little buddy.” He shuffles in behind Max, hesitating in the doorway. That’s odd. Typically he’d have laughed that off but, as Sam watches the lagomorph amble about the office with what should be his usual pointless meandering, he notices a certain tenseness in his partner’s step. Like he’s only pretending to be relaxed, to keep up appearances, while he wanders first to one window, then the other, giving each a glance with unusually flinty eyes. It’s almost like some sort of alien is wearing Max as a skin-suit, and the very idea makes his own skin-suit crawl. But the moment the rabbitlike creature clears the second window that hidden tension melts away and he’s truly back to his old bouncy self, turning to grin up at Sam like usual. Sam gives him what he hopes is a convincing smile back, shutting the office door behind him and moving towards the desk, to pick up where they left off. 

He stands as he had before, blinking down at the assorted case files. His mind slowly shifts back into detective mode; this time, Max scrabbles up onto the chair to peer over the papers, too, leaning against Sam, and the dog lifts his good arm to pet Max’s head. The mindless motion helps him zone out just enough as he stares down, eyes flicking from one opened manila folder, spewing its guts across the desk haphazardly (as he’d spent hours pawing through them), to another. It’s starting to fall into place, now.

The dolphins were the beginning of the chaos, after the villain that broke his arm. That renegade seems unconnected at present (other than the fact that he broke Sam’s arm), but both the dolphins and that weird politician were aiming to change the weather… But why? How would that help? It all seems very deliberate, in the strangest of ways. Only a few seem connected, but, the ones that are _all_ have to do with altering the weather for the wetter. Unusual. Perhaps the others were just distractions? Or an attempt to tire out the infamously tireless Freelance Police? They were certainly too focused on separating the duo to be _entirely_ unrelated, surely. He scratches behind one of Max’s ears, earning a weird tooth-grinding noise from the lagomorph, grotesque to anyone’s ears but his. Sam doesn’t let himself get distracted, though, and resumes poring over the case files after one self-indulgent glance at his partner’s gleeful face, eyes shut and a massive smile on his face. 

He really could be adorable at times. Shark teeth and all. Sam might even say _kissably_ adorable, if he weren’t mildly terrified of those teeth, and the possible beating he’d receive if he said so. Despite that, part of him wants to think about it more, but he forces himself to focus, glowering down at the papers. 

Last case, they’d managed to dodge getting separated, despite the increasingly-transparent efforts made by their opponent. Given they’ve caught on to the pattern by now, it wasn’t too difficult; after all, it’s hard to separate a duo when one is shooting from the back of the other. Piggyback rides into battle are pretty fun, anyways, so nothing was lost. But it had been quite odd, really, seeing to what lengths the villain went for just that one thing. Like it was the crux of the whole plan, somehow… Sam furrows his brow and another piece begins to fall into place. He already knows how he… well, how he _gets_ when Max isn’t around. Sometimes he remembers the rainy night he slapped around damn near everybody he walked into and winces a little; it was downright unprofessional, really, even though in the moment he felt he was channeling Flint’s methods. But Flint is an alcoholic noir stereotype and Sam is a big pudgy dog. He shouldn’t have even tried, and it’s embarrassing to think of now. Regardless, he and everyone he ran into that night are well aware of how much losing Max brings him to the brink of losing his shit, and now he finds the gears in his head turning to a different tune—

Max is practically purring _right_ in his ear now. 

Sam glances down, now realizing he didn’t stop petting Max, who’s on his tiptoes with his hands on the back of the chair (rotated such that the back of the chair is right at Sam’s side) leaning so far into the gesture he might fall over. Sam has to stifle a laugh, and the tiredness sort of crashes over him, as if his concentration on the case was the only thing keeping the weariness at bay. His brain feels kinda foggy. He must just be too tired to focus. Removing his hand from his partner’s head, he says, “It’s getting too late for me to think properly. Let’s head home.”

The bluntness and lack of any sort of quip about the city smog enveloping his brain or something catches Max off-guard, and he peers up into the dog’s face for a second before replying with a simple, oddly complacent, “Okay.” 

* * *

The night should be a peaceful one—after all, it’s been a long day, they deserve the rest—but the air is tense. Sam, standing in the bathroom and doing his best to pretend the mirror just doesn’t exist, tugs on his nightshirt and buttons it up most of the way, now capable of (slowly) doing so without help, before walking into the bedroom to see Max sitting on his bed, legs folded in a Lotus position, hands in his lap, staring down at them with a shockingly troubled look on his face. The dog pauses in the doorway, Max raises his head, they make eye contact for a moment, and some sort of silent understanding passes between them. He gently swings the door shut behind him like always, smiling a little in some expression of—pity? Sympathy? _Love_? No one can tell, least of all him—as he walks over to his bed, scoops up his partner (who, when Sam was close enough, had stretched his arms up in an amusingly needy display, to wrap around his shoulders), and clambers in as best he can with only one functional arm. They don’t say anything, just settle in, comfortably silent, each grateful to the other for not acknowledging the elephant in the room here. Max curls into Sam’s arms and the dog pulls him close like a stuffed toy, not particularly worried about if Max could breathe or not (he’d likely kick Sam if he was having any trouble with that) and they lie in the sober ambiance that is knowing full well that the next villainous plot to tear them apart could appear on their doorstep at any moment.

…Though, really, Sam isn’t too terribly bothered by that. If anything he’s morbidly curious as to why _he’s_ (apparently) being targeted, as opposed to Max, which would be more normal—But then again, it’s entirely possible that the knife-wielding maniac who somehow thought he could take Max on and survive was stupid, mistaken, or lying (most likely stupid to the highest degree). In any case, despite the heightened sense of danger, this is hardly _too_ abnormal. After all, they’ve built quite a nice name for themselves as freelance lawmen-of-sorts, and, naturally, those on the wrong side of the law are a little resentful to say the least. It may be a bit off the beaten path, for sure, but not too far; they can still see the main trail. For now. 

What Sam _is_ bothered by, however, would be the fact that _Max_ seems to be so bothered by it. Upset enough that he hasn’t fallen asleep yet and is just staring straight ahead, glassy-eyed, not really seeing the mess of short brown fur before him. A quiet moment to themselves is hard to come by, and so Sam takes full advantage of this one to gently lift his good arm up and run his paw over Max’s back, settling on his shoulder blades and gently scratching between them. A gesture that intimate wouldn’t be taken too well in any other moment, but they both know Max needs a bit of comfort and, well, no one else is watching (they presume). “What’s on your mind?” He murmurs, getting an amusing sense of déjà vu. 

“Nothing.” Max lies far too quickly. Sam doesn’t respond, letting Max decide to tell the truth on his own time. He expects it to happen in the next five-or-so minutes, but silence swamps them again, broken only by the light noise of crickets chirping and someone five doors down hosting a party, its music only barely reaching their ears in the form of low, barely-audible bass thumps.

Finally Sam breaks the hanging quiet. “You sure?” 

It takes Max far too long to reply. “Yeah.” 

A bit of frustration rises in the dog’s heart, against his best efforts. It’s such an obvious lie. Why won’t his partner just _say_ something? Does he feel like he can’t tell Sam? They tell each other everything. Don’t they? They used to—When did that stop? (…He **knows** when it stopped.) It’s beyond upsetting that he can feel so far away from Max even as he holds the rabbit-y creature in his arms, closer than he usually lets himself—closer than Max usually lets him—but as close as he’s wanted for _years_ now. 

His silence must feel a little too angry—maybe because he’d gotten so caught up in his own head that his petting had come to a stop, hand resting on Max’s spine—because he suddenly becomes aware of a small hand running its fingers through the fur just below his collarbone, forcing him to suppress a slight shiver of surprise. “I’m sorry,” Max says, sounding frighteningly sincere.

“It’s alright,” Sam lies near-reflexively with a little sigh. He can’t exactly be angry with Max for this. Maybe it really _is_ nothing, maybe the lagomorph is just in a weird mood. But even as he tries to convince himself of that, he knows it’s wrong, knows Max too well—even _this_ Max—to believe it for a second; yet, equally, he knows Max well enough to be fully aware that getting him to talk about something bothering him before he’s ready is downright disastrous. So he just curls in a little more, resting his chin on his partner’s forehead. If he had less impulse control he might press a soft kiss there, but even just lying like this is… pushing his luck. Even if it was Max’s idea. So instead he just mumbles, “Goodnight, Max.”

“’Night, Sam.” Max replies quietly. 

Neither falls asleep for quite a while, but when they do, they sleep soundly—without any nightmares deeper than the same old ones they’d had for eons now—much past dawn. 

Max is the first to wake in slight confusion, having rolled onto his back at some point overnight. He squints, eyes adjusting to the late-morning sun, and shifts slightly, realizing that he’s laying on Sam’s broken arm, which is less than comfortable (for both of them, likely). He looks to his side, and sees the dog lying spread-eagle as well, snoring loudly. The lagomorph sits up, stretches and pops his bones, then sighs, slumping slightly, turning back to look at his partner again. He shuffles closer, wary of waking him, and then, cautiously, ever so cautiously, reaches over to pet Sam. The dog snores on, oblivious, and Max relaxes if only by a slight amount, gently running his fingers through the few longer, wiry strands of hair that tend to stick nearly straight up off Sam’s head. They’re cute, in that same dorky, awkward way he has always been. Max lets his hand come to rest cupping the back of his partner’s head, scratching him for a moment and hearing a funny subtle shifting noise as the dog’s tail tries to wag despite being stuck beneath him. He grins, amused, before withdrawing his hand and hopping out of bed. It’s time to wake Sam up—they might have yet another case today!—and he’s going to do it the fun way… Now, where did he leave that airhorn?

* * *

Sam was not as enthused to be awoken in a more ‘fun’ way than sunlight assaulting his eyes, and makes that abundantly clear by punting Max halfway to orbit—or, less hyperbolically, almost entirely out of the room. If he hadn’t clipped the doorway he’d have ended up in the hall, but, regardless, he springs back up from it with a huge grin, completely ignoring Sam’s glare. “Good morning, sunshine!” Max cackles, blaring the airhorn again. At that the dog practically shoots out of bed towards him, yanking him from the floor with his good arm and, somehow, managing to snag the airhorn from his partner’s fuzzy white paws with his broken one. To his credit, Max lets him take it, just grinning up at Sam gleefully.

The anger fades as Max giggles in his face and Sam considers it enough of a punishment to dump the lagomorph on the ground and growl a decidedly unfriendly, “Good morning, Max,” as he stomps out of the room for some coffee. Max scampers after him with his usual bouncy cheer, going so far as to tackle Sam from behind and scrabble his way up to his shoulders, bringing a slight smile to his partner’s muzzle. He can never stay annoyed with his fuzzy little pal for too long, and reaches up with his good arm to give Max a scratch on the cheek, wary of his teeth as a wide smile stretches across his face and he grinds his molars in that alarming tooth-purr he does, right in the dog’s ear. “Did you eat the last Pop-Tart, or is there still one left?”

Max hums for a moment, distracted by how nice the scritches feel, then manages, “Mmmshould still be one left…”

Sam chuckles as Max starts to lean in more to his touch. “I think you might be enjoying this a bit _too_ much, little pal.” He quips, stepping into the kitchen. Max takes the hint and hops off his shoulders and onto the kitchen counter, where he is promptly swatted to the floor. “Don’t put your feet on the counter, Max,” Sam scolds. “I know (vaguely) where you’ve been and I don’t want to think about it over breakfast.” 

Max giggles maniacally as he picks himself up off the ground. “I don’t blame you, Sam!” He springs up onto a chair instead, watching Sam rifle through the cabinets before finding the Pop-Tart he was after (for whatever reason—he wasn’t usually one to seek them out). The dog pops it into the toaster, then stares quietly at it, still looking quite sleepy. He hid the airhorn in one of the upper cabinets, Max thinks, given it’s not in his hands anymore; likely, he wants to deter the lagomorph from finding it the next morning. 

Afternoon sunlight oozes in through the kitchen’s tiny window, adding the faintest glow to the dog’s fur, and Max amuses himself by watching the dust motes drift through the air. Mainly those near Sam’s head, as an excuse to himself for staring at the dog for so long. Sam, in his typical immense aloofness, does not notice Max in the slightest, content to eye the toaster until it spits out his breakfast, and he pulls the Pop-Tarts out of the toaster with little yips of “ooh, hot,” and “ow, ow, ow,” which elicit a peal of giggling from the lagomorph watching him. Sam tosses the Pop-Tart from hand to hand in an effort to cool it, grumbling the whole while, until realizing he can just balance it on his cast until it cools enough to be eaten. And given how close that is to him, he’s not liable to have it stolen by Max.

The lagomorph, to his credit, has decided to hop down from the chair and fix himself a bowl of alarmingly-technicolour cereal. As he pours the cereal into the bowl, he side-eyes his partner, then asks in as casual a tone he can muster, “How’s your arm?”

Sam is only slightly surprised. He glances down, thinks about it for a second, then replies. “Itchy. I can’t wait to get this stupid cast off.” 

Max grins. “I could try to bite it off for you!” 

“I’d rather wait for it to heal, first,” Sam replies a little warily. “It _is_ my shooting arm, after all.” 

“Aw, okay,” Max sounds disappointed, but his smile barely wavers. He tears open the fridge and squints into it. “Hey, Sam, did we forget to buy milk?”

“I think it expired and we threw it out the window.” Sam replies, finally picking up his Pop-Tart. It’s pleasantly warm, and no longer nuclear-hot. “Sorry, little buddy.” 

“I’ll just use coffee creamer.” Max shrugs, hopping up to grab said coffee creamer, and Sam cringes, sticking his tongue out behind his partner’s back in the universal nonverbal expression of ‘ew, gross.’ He turns away from his partner to avoid having to witness him pouring coffee creamer into a bowl like milk, opting instead to shove an entire Pop-Tart into his mouth. He settles down at the little dining table in their kitchen, chewing thoughtfully, as Max finally finishes making his cereal abomination and waddles over to the table, careful not to spill it, then springs up onto the chair across from Sam and starts in on his breakfast. It’s almost nauseating to watch, so Sam looks away, picking up his other Pop-Tart and taking a bite from it. He’s somewhat still in the process of waking up, really, and finds himself attempting to run a mental recap of what he’d been puzzling over last night. 

He’s just catching up to where he had been when he hears an annoyed, “Sa-aaaam…” on his left. He turns, one ear lifted. “Finish your breakfast already!” 

It’s funny to hear Max nag him, but as he looks down at his Pop-Tart he can’t help but feel a little nauseated. A little voice at the back of his head is berating him for making such an unhealthy choice for breakfast; it feels like a stone sitting in his stomach. Why did he have to eat that? He really shouldn’t have. “I, uh, I’m full now,” He lies to himself as much as he lies to Max, putting the half-eaten pastry down on the table.

Max’s eyes narrow and Sam avoids his gaze, moving to stand up. Before he can, though, there’s a thump and a sort of rattling noise (the spoon left in the cereal bowl, clattering about with the force of a sudden blow to the tabletop) as Max springs onto the table, snatching the Pop-Tart up. Sam turns to give him a bewildered look, and before he can react, his partner reaches one hand forward to pry open Sam’s jaw, fingers between his teeth, so the other can shove the rest of the Pop-Tart in the dog’s mouth. Once the lagomorph has done that he hops back down off the table like nothing happened, leaving a frozen and baffled dog at the table. “Come on, or you’ll miss the morning cartoons!”

Sam is forced to chew and swallow the pastry before he can reply, “Max, it’s one in the afternoon.” 

“Aw, darn.” 

* * *

The phone rings before they can really settle into anything, thankfully, and they spring into action. Sam had been a lot closer to it than Max, and so he answers the call just in time for his partner to slam right into his back, sliding down for a second before gripping Sam’s nightshirt and attempting to scale him in order to get at the phone.

Sam turns quickly and Max flops off his back, onto the floor with a loud protesting “OOF!” The dog grins at him, lifting the phone to his ears. “Hello? ...Commissioner!” He says in a sunshiney tone, stomping on Max right as the lagomorph moves to get up. Feeble white paws smack at his leg in annoyance at having been stymied so easily. “Yes. No, no… yeah! ...Seventeen—no, eighteen…Right you are, sir. Alright! We’re on our way!” 

He slams the phone down on the receiver, lifting his foot slightly; Max holds onto it, scrabbling his way up the dog’s leg like a giant fuzzy white roach. “What’s our case today?” He asks with a massive smile, staring intently at Sam. 

“According to the Commissioner,” Sam begins as he walks back to their room with Max clinging to him like a koala, “there’s some dastardly goings-on down at the water treatment facility.” He picks up a dress shirt and sniffs at it, deciding it smells alright to wear, “Grand water-theft! Some scoundrel is attempting to steal the city’s water for some unknowably complex and asinine scheme!” He looks down. “Get off me, I’m gonna go change.” 

“What’s the fuss? It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked—” Max starts.

Sam swats him off his shirt. “Walking in on me in the shower to ask if we have any Pizza Poultices left isn’t the same, nor is it something I _appreciate_ , little pal,” He interrupts testily, stomping out of the room to avoid Max noticing (and mocking him for) the slight reddening of his face. 

Max sits on the floor for a moment, dazed, then shakes his head, springing to his feet. “ _Sure_ it isn’t, Sam!” He calls with a hyena laugh. The bathroom door shuts audibly, and he cackles more. Getting under the dog’s skin is one of his favorite pastimes. 

Luckily Sam doesn’t bother to shower this morning, clearly in a rush to get started on their mission. He jogs out of the bathroom, scooping Max up on his way out the door like the whoever-it-is in football that typically sprints with the ball; the author knows nothing about sportsball. “We better hurry, little buddy!”

Max grins, glancing up as Sam’s tie flops over to smack him right in the face. He frees his arm from Sam’s grip to pry the fabric off his face, draping it up onto his forehead like a scarf of sorts. They barrel down the stairs, out to the Desoto, and before Max can even properly settle into his seat they’re tearing down the street. He lets out a whoop of joy, clutching the seat as best he can. Sam must really be raring to go today. He can certainly understand that, eager for more action himself. In light of their avoiding being separated last case, it feels like maybe they've a handle on this now. There's hope here somewhere, and they can both feel it, on some level. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one is sorta 'late'  
> i mean i know iont have an established update cycle but i have aimed at a once-per-week sorta thing  
> but the next few may take a while im doin my best to give this a solid resolution  
> .....and to that effect ill say i dont like this chapter so much but 1) imonna stop sayin that on every damn chap and 2) i hope yall can enjoy it regardless


	9. Solving the Through-Line

Between the screeching tires and the lagomorph who, coincidentally, is also screeching, it’s a wonder Sam has any hearing left by the time they come skidding to a halt in front of the water treatment facility. Sam pops open the door and peers up in shock and horror. “Holy half-baked ham hocks hanging over half-witted housemen, Max, _look_ at **that**!” 

Far above them sits something that looks like a massive blimp, but surely can’t be, on account of the propulsion jets currently humming quite loudly to keep it aloft. Blimps don’t tend to have those—at least, not ones capable of pointing downwards to keep the thing aloft. One tube not unlike a giant proboscis extends down into the water treatment facility, clearly siphoning off the water, similar to some kind of massive bendy-straw.

“Neat,” Max comments keenly, tilting his entire upper half over backwards to get a proper look at it. 

Sam slides one hand under his head just to keep the lagomorph from flopping over, replying, “It _is_ pretty neat, little pal, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that it’s what we’re here to deal with.”

“I wanna pop a hole in it and see it zip across the sky, spraying water everywhere!” Max chirps, finally straightening up again to wave his hands around excitedly. 

Sam chuckles, shaking his head, and pats Max kindly. “Let’s get to work, little buddy.” He saunters to the gate of the facility, partner at his heels. 

“Again, I prefer _mayhem for pay._ ” Max grins wickedly, and Sam mostly ignores him, though a smile tugs at his lips. Instead of replying, though, he pauses in front of the chain-link security gate, giving it a once-over before deciding to try to climb it. He takes a half-pace back, then hops up, looping his fingers through the links as best he can, using only one arm. Having abnormally-large hands is also not very convenient right now, so he struggles a fair bit, but claws his way up it regardless, flopping over the top directly onto his face, knocking the wind out of his sails for a moment. Max lands beside him, on his feet, and seems only mildly concerned about the dog lying prone in the dirt. “You okay?” The rabbity creature prompts not without a touch of amusement, nudging the dog with his foot. 

A little dazed, the dogtective stands up, shaking his head vigorously to clear the cobwebs. “Yep.” He adjusts his hat, dusts off his suitjacket, and steps forward confidently again. It’s eerily quiet, he realizes, though Max wastes little time in working to fill the silence with his usual lovable violent chattering. Sam tunes that out mostly, as well, knowing the lagomorph just likes to talk, keeping his ears more tuned to any sort of background noise. Whatever employees were here clearly aren’t anymore; whether that be because they fled, or because they’ve been hogtied in a supply closet, is for the vocational police to find out when they come through to clean up after the Freelance Police. Sam finds himself wondering where the big cheese who set this whole scheme up might be hiding. Likely somewhere in a control room or whatever. Neither he nor Max have been here before (why would they need to?) so they’re essentially going in blind—not unusual for them. But wandering around cluelessly is quite boring.

He pauses in a drab-looking hallway. A pair of ominously large doors stand at the end of the hall they’re now standing in front of; it bisected the other one they’d been wandering down. Sam glances at Max and knows the doors look just as alluring to him, and so, they turn and head down that hall. Sam pauses for a moment and the duo exchange a grin before the dog kicks the doors open. Of course, they failed to realize the doors are double-jointed, so open being blasted open they immediately swing back right as the Freelance Police are stepping into the doorway, smacking both of them right in the face and knocking them flat on their asses.

“Well, that went spectacularly,” Max snarks, sitting up and rubbing his nose. Luckily, it isn’t bleeding.

Sam groans, dragging himself upright as well. He hates getting hit in the nose and can’t help a little whine as he rubs it. “You can say that again,” he sighs, standing up. Max hops to his feet beside him. “Let’s try that again.” 

“Are you su—”

“I don’t mean _kicking_ it again, bullethead,” Sam interrupts with a touch of irritation. Max grins up at him, but he doesn’t let it get to him, opting instead to huff moodily and nudge the door open with the appropriate lack of serious force. 

They find themselves in a fairly massive room, with a high ceiling and long, deep basins of light-blue water surrounded by railings (for the most part). Lit by rows of fluorescent lights, humming with active machinery—namely several A/C units and whatever force is siphoning off the water—the place has that odd sense of grunginess you don’t usually want to see near your drinking water yet it an inherent part of keeping massive amounts of water anywhere. Above one of the nearer water basins is a massive hole in the ceiling, from which the huge tube they saw stretching into the sky earlier has descended into the water. 

“Funny, I thought it’d make much more of a cartoony slurping noise,” Max says in an almost disappointed tone. “It’s too quiet.”

“Yeah,” Sam murmurs, eyes scanning their surroundings. “Much too quiet…” His hand hovers near Max in some sort of expression of a protective instinct. 

“I was wondering when you two chuckleheads would get here.” A loud and unfamiliar voice comes echoing over to them, bouncing around the high industrial ceiling. They both jump, and Sam whips out his revolver, clumsy non-dominant paw only fumbling a _little_ with it, gaze skating back and forth warily. He begins to creep forward, steps light but deliberate, mind running through all the possibilities of where their villain could be hiding. “I would’ve figured we’d been stopped ages ago. You’re getting slow in your old age.”

“Who are you calling **_old_**?” Max snaps, affronted. “I positively _glow_ with youth!” 

“I think you’re thinking of immaturity, Max,” Sam quips light-heartedly, stealing a glance at his little buddy. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Max waves him off with a little huff. “Potayto, potahto.” 

“Excuse me, I was still attempting a villainous monologue over here,” their unseen interlocutor interrupts.

“Oh, of course,” Sam replies politely, “Our bad.” 

“Like I was saying. You’re much too late to be of any use at all,” their voice grows confident again and Sam restrains an eye-roll, sharing a ‘ _you hear this guy?_ ’ sort of a glance with Max. The lagomorph shakes his head wordlessly. “Our plans are far too close to fruition to be stymied by your feeble efforts!”

“You do an awful lot of talking for somebody not even brave enough to grace our retinas with your ugly countenance,” Sam points out.

“My, you’re right—where are my manners?” Footsteps sound and Sam’s head snaps up, ears perked. At the top of a few stairs, a little bit ahead of them, a human figure steps into view. A rather plain-looking man sporting an off-white collared shirt and greyish slacks. The kind of face only a mother could even remember. Sam finds himself forgetting it even as he looks at it. “Hello.”

“Hi. Can you knock it off? _It_ being, whatever it is you’re doing here?”

“No. And, I don’t think you’re going to **stop** me, either,” he says almost smugly, hands behind his back in a very arrogant posture. 

The duo are, of course, unconvinced, and Sam continues to stalk forward, gun in hand, head down but peering up from under the brim of his hat, slight snarl threatening the corners of his mouth. Something about this incredibly milquetoast man is setting him on edge. Is he a mailman? It feels like he might be. Max ambles along in his usual fashion just behind his partner, certain his grinning shark teeth are intimidating enough. Somehow the villain seems entirely unbothered by this. “What makes you say that?” Sam asks cordially, finger on the trigger, eyeing him warily.

“Home advantage,” he says simply, lifting one hand. In it is a small remote, and he presses a button; for a moment the detectives stare in confusion as a little mechanical whirring begins to echo, until a massive machine arm swings out of seemingly nowhere, making a beeline for the still-advancing dog.

With a loud thwack, Sam goes flying, alarmingly quickly considering his size, and Max flinches with a startled yelp, watching his partner sail right into the water. Unconscious. Panic seizes him and he completely disregards their case and the villain before him, sprinting to the edge of the water basin with a scream, “SAM!”

He flings himself into the pool with a massive splash, pausing for a second and blinking several times in an effort to see better; Sam is sinking, slowly, and the lagomorph realizes that if he strays too close to the pipe siphoning water off, he’s done for. There’s no way Max would be able to get him out of the giant blimp-or-whatever, not in one piece anyways. He swims as fast as he can, which is regrettably not very fast, heart thundering in his ears. It’s all he can hear with water muffling everything else. 

The rest of the world falls away—all that exists is Sam slowly drifting farther away, tie floating upward, jacket slowly flapping in the water’s current, and Max struggling towards him, eyes locked to his partner with a firm, determined glare on his face as he paddles forth. His depth perception is a little screwy underwater, and he tries and fails several times to grab onto the dog; he finally flails out a hand, frustrated by the weight of his limbs in the water, and miraculously snatches hold of the dog’s jacket lapel _just barely_. 

He grips it as hard as he can. This is going to be the hard part but at least he knows Sam won’t be dragged into the blimp. Pulling up, he drags Sam towards him, grabbing onto his undershirt now with both paws, wary of the jacket falling off or something (a bit of an irrational fear, but he’s not thinking too clearly). He kicks as hard as he can, tilting his head up to look at the surface. It looks dauntingly both miles away and within arms’ reach at the same time. His lungs are starting to feel tight but he grits his teeth, little air bubbles slipping between his lips and out his nose; he ignores it, pressing on. He finds himself thinking _at least if I fail, we drown together,_ but forces himself to focus only on swimming upward, no matter how tired his arms feel from dragging his best friend who is likely twice his weight, if not more. All of his limbs are starting to ache, though, and he grows more and more worried that this is where their impressive track record of getting out alive by the skin of their teeth truly is going to end, and it won’t be exciting at all, it’ll be silent and _desperate_ and goddamnit, there’ll be no fireworks.

Lucky enough, his head breaks the surface and he gasps, then tenses nearly every muscle in his body to heave Sam upwards as well. The dog doesn’t react or _anything_ when his head bobs up before sinking a little again; a bit frantic, Max looks around manically, struggling to stay on the surface with this much dead weight. He’s nowhere near the edge of the basin, and there’s a slight suction dragging him down in addition to Sam but he thrashes as best he can towards the nearest edge, hauling the alarmingly-still-unconscious Sam with him. Once he finally reaches that concrete lip he shifts Sam in his arms, pushing up as much as he can and throwing the dog out of the water onto the bank. He hits it with a rather meaty sort of a _plop_ sound, not responsive in the slightest, and Max grits his teeth, eyes flashing white as the thought _maybe I wasn’t fast enough_ bounces through his mind. Panting, he then flings himself out of the water, flopping down to wheeze for a second before forcing himself to get up and shove Sam over onto his back. For a moment Max stands over him, panicking, scanning him up and down with his eyes for any sign of breathing. He has no clue what to do, doesn’t know CPR or anything even remotely similar, so he does the one thing he knows out to do: punch Sam in the diaphragm, hard as possible. The dog coughs, spewing not a small amount of water, then sputters, rolling onto his side to keep coughing and spitting up water.

A wave of relief crashes over Max, and he slumps against Sam’s back. “Oh, thank god, you’re okay.” He mutters softly, wiping water off of his face. His partner doesn’t seem to hear him over the vague sort-of-choking noises he’s making.

Sam finally quits hacking up water and pushes up on all fours to shake himself off like a quadrupedal dog, forcing Max to reel back (and, unfortunately, get a shower of water that reeks of wet dog), before turning to look at him. “What happened?” He manages, voice sounding a little strained, as Max wrings water out of his ears.

Max turns to glare at the villain across the basin, only to realize he’s disappeared deeper into the facility. Now he can see that above the pool, descending from the ceiling, is what seems to be some sort of construction or maintenance-machine arm, holding a large pipe not unlike some of the pipes protruding from the walls. Might have been what the culprit—or culprits—used to assemble the massive tube stretching up to the blimp-like aircraft. “Guy hit you with a giant pipe.”

“Guess that explains the ringing in my head.” Sam looks over into the basin, putting a paw to his bare head with a look of slight surprise on his face. “...Where did my hat go?”

Max looks over as well. It’s not floating in the basin. “Who knows?” He hopes it wasn’t sucked into the blimp… but it probably was. Sam sighs, then stands up a bit unsteadily. Max springs to his feet as well, putting one paw on Sam’s waist to steady him, and he can’t keep the worry off his face as he peers up. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.” Sam reaches down to put a paw on Max’s head, and the lagomorph notices he puts a fair amount of weight on it. The dog wanted to seem like he was just giving his partner the typical head-pat but he really did feel quite wobbly on his feet. The realization he nearly drowned—the worst death he can imagine!— is settling in and a rather late wave of adrenaline washes over him, leaving him shaky and nauseated. Max straightens a little to better serve as a support, making no comment on it, and eventually Sam withdraws his hand and stands properly, no longer winded, albeit still quite rattled. He wrings out his tie. “Right. Well. We’d better go find our perp before he slinks off out the back door.” His voice regains its strength and determined edge, and Max breathes an inward sigh of relief, glad his partner is alright, at least outwardly. He can’t ignore the slight tremor in the dog’s paws, but he keeps quiet about it, trusting Sam to know himself well enough to have said something if he wasn’t alright—and trusting him to know Max will always help.

* * *

A few rooms away, the now-abandoned decoy villain is cowering in a closet. It’s a larger closet than most are, but a closet nonetheless, and he curses himself for taking this easy paycheck. They’d promised they’d get him out of there but of course when he radioed in their harsh laughter had nearly knocked out his damn eardrums—and now the little walkie-talkie wasn’t working at all. It was all a setup so he’d take the fall, and neither the Freelance Police nor the normal police have any reason to believe him, given the way his temporary boss covered their tracks… He wishes he hadn’t been so stupid but well, hindsight is always 20/20.  

The door slams open and in it stands one soggy, irritated dog and his equally-soggy little pal who, despite the grin, is fuming mad as well. 

“You _survived_?!” Finally their target seems adequately rattled.

“Of course we did,” Sam snaps confidently, marching forth with a murderous certainty to his steps. He reaches into his coat and withdraws his revolver, shaking water off of it. He’s definitely going to need to lie in the sun for a while after this one; the feeling of his wet suit clinging to him is incredibly unpleasant and chilly.

“No thanks to **you** ,” Max chimes in grouchily, staring down the villain even as he tries to back away from the Freelance Police. 

“Hey—Li-Listen, you guys,” He smiles warily at them, “Maybe we can, uh, work something out—”

“Listen to this guy, Max—I mean, Sam,” Max scoffs. “All his bravado gone! Snuffed out like a bonfire in the rain!” 

“I think ‘like a candle’ would’ve been sufficient, Max,” Sam points out with a little smile at his partner before turning his focus back to the man cowering pressed against a water heater. He steps right up into the guy’s personal space and his expression darkens again as he shoves his revolver against their sternum. “We don’t ‘work things out’ with criminals, pal.”

“Unless by ‘work things out’ you mean ‘beat senseless,’ in which case, we do that all the time!” Max grins up at the now-trembling villain.

Sam growls, curling his lip to show off his sharp teeth, and leans in close, barrel of his gun still pressed to the man’s chest. “Tell me who you’re working for, or I’ll breathe right in your face!” 

“Lemme bite him in the face, Sam,” Max chirps, bouncing around his partner cheerfully. “Lemme at ’im!”

“Back off, Max,” Sam warns a little tiredly, and the lagomorph hops back to give him space, only a little miffed about it.

“A-Alright, okay, man!” The man leans back, already looking a little green. Something about the fact that Sam’s not even bringing any attention to the loaded gun pressed up against the guilty party’s sternum renders it more frightening than if he _had_ pointed it out. “Look, I, I don’t know their name, but, but I can tell you where they are?” 

“Spill!” Sam snarls and the criminal squeaks involuntarily, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane. 

“Th-Th-They’re stay—staying at the hostel in the L-Latin quarter! And, and the next, uh, next part of their planorwhatever is gonna be at the power plant on 24th Avenue!”

It doesn’t make any sense to Sam, but Max’s eyes go wide from his position standing a foot or so behind him. The last time anything happened on that street—Well, it didn’t happen in _this_ reality… It all feels too familiar and a chill rushes up his spine, an icy snake of terror winding its way around his vertebrae. He isn’t one for puzzling things out but this is so terribly, blatantly obvious— 

But only to him. 

“Power plant?” Sam’s voice loses some edge in confusion, but he shakes it off quickly, just accepting the bizarreness of the location. “Thanks for your help.” He growls, pulling his gun back from the man’s chest and tucking it away, then taking a step back and pointing toward the door, “Now scram!”

It shouldn’t make sense to anyone but Max, right? There’s no way. Nothing like that happened in this reality, Sam didn’t die—Max didn’t _kill_ him—nothing played out even remotely similar to his own reality besides the base, skeletal premise of giant monsters and dead loved ones. The lagomorph stares ahead with vacant eyes as their perp, instead of rushing off into the arms of the vocational police as planned, faints, crumpling to the floor in front of Sam. “Oh, say, _that’s_ unexpected.” Sam comments, staring down at him.

Max looks pale. Or, well, pal _er_ , if possible. Kind of clammy. He’s staring wide-eyed at the unconscious man slumped at Sam’s feet. “Little buddy?” The dog prompts, abruptly straightening up as if aware of how savage he might have seemed, in an embarrassed display of self-hyperawareness. 

Max snaps back to reality, mostly. “What is it, Sam?” He manages through the lump in his throat. It’s an audible discomfort.

Sam raises an eyebrow at him. “You’re actin’ weird.” He says bluntly. 

“I’m fine!” Max blurts a little too quickly. “I think my lunch—uh, breakfast—is repeating on me, is all.” 

He’s not a good liar when it comes to Sam. Half of him wants to blurt it all out—everything, _everything_ , all the things he’s been refusing to say, **_everything_** —and the other half is screaming to never say anything, if you just stay quiet it goes away, out of sight out of mind, _quit picking at the scab, Max_ —

A hand plops down onto his head and he’s forced back into the present again. He’s panting. When did he start feeling like his own lungs are choking him? “Did you get too worked-up at the threat of violence?” Sam suggests good-naturedly, but there’s an underlying unease, like he wants Max to just grin and affirm the assumption and yet knows it would be a lie. 

Lie or not, Max knows the role he has to play. He forces a smile to his face. “Probably. What are we gonna do now, Sam?” His voice is more taut and breathless than he’d like. He knows Sam doesn’t buy it but he doesn’t say anything, _why doesn’t he say anything_ , it’s like _he’d_ rather just ignore it, too, which he _never_ used to do. But maybe _this_ Sam is a bit less likely to take things head-on.

“Well, it seems to me like we should follow the lead we’ve just been handed,” the dog says amiably.

“Right! Let’s go.” Max grins as widely as he can. Maybe he’s just mistaken. By god, he hopes he’s mistaken.

* * *

“Hm.” One clawed hand comes to rest on a knob protruding from the console; the wrist turns, a click is heard, and the screen monitoring the Freelance Police through the facility’s security camera fizzes and goes black. “That’s gonna put a wrench in the works.” 

“Do we…need to change our plan?” An understandably-skittish underling inquires from his spot a reasonable and respectable safe distance from his boss. 

“Nah, nah…” They wave a hand. “We’ve plenty of water, all we need is power. Oh, and for one of ya idiots to finally kill the dog. Seriously, you dolts have **_one_ ** job.” 

“I’m sorry. We’ve been trying our best—”

“Your _best_ ,” they snap testily, “ain’t _good enough_.  Kick your asses into high gear or I’ll do it for you.”

“Yes, s… uh…”

“Don’t bother, just say ‘yes’ and get the hell outta here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hullo im not dead just bad at endings, and it took me forever to really .... settle on a proper ending (which is NOT this chapter but the next one!)  
> hope this satisfied, despite the wait; it may be a lil while fore chapter 10 is done, too. in like 2 days i go back to college so .. shit's been a lil hectic an it's only gonna get more hectic ! ack


	10. Not-So-Grand Finale

“Power plant,” Sam mumbles aloud as he drives, brow furrowed. He’s so up-in-his-own-head trying to puzzle it out that he doesn’t notice Max being uncharacteristically quiet and calm beside him. He’s too busy trying to wrap his head around the deeper plot that surely must be afoot. “I wonder what they could be doing there?”

He expects Max to suggest something silly but certainly plausible by the standards of wackiness in their lives, something like _maybe they’re going to flood it to build a tank for their electric eels_ , but when his partner says nothing, Sam finally glances over. The lagomorph is sitting with his legs folded, feet in his lap, face expressionlessly thoughtful. 

The dog gives him a concerned look. Deep thought isn’t common for Max, and generally not a very good sign; something is bothering him, but Sam can’t place just what that might be. “Little buddy?”

Max snaps to attention but still doesn’t smile yet. “Hm? What?”

“You feelin’ okay?” 

He grins finally and it looks… unnerving. Mirthless, which sets Sam’s skin crawling. “Just indigestion, Sam!” The chipper tune to his normal voice sounds too forced and all of this is making the dog incredibly uneasy but he finds his throat closing up at the thought of pressing his little pal any further, so they just lapse into an uncomfortable silence while Sam shifts gears into puzzling over why Max is being so… un-Max-like. 

He doesn’t come to a conclusion before they skid to a stop in front of the power plant. The large blimp is now hovering over it, ominously, not nearly as whimsical-seeming than before, but maybe Sam is just projecting. He wonders that as he affords another glance at the quiet Max next to him before popping the door to the DeSoto open and stepping out. “Stick close, Max. Who knows what kind of evil mastermind is lurking within?”

He’s expecting some banter back from his little buddy, but he just feels small paws wrap their fingers around the hem of his jacket; an odd reaction from Max. In response, Sam gently pats him on the head with his broken arm before proceeding up the steps and into the building proper. 

There’s a long hallway lined with ducts and other miscellaneous metal things the duo can only assume are somehow helpful to the facility; they pay little attention to the structure itself, instead eyeing every dark corner in search of possible assailants. Oddly, the place seems quite barren, which is weird considering there’s clearly some sort of shenanigans going on here. A responsible supervillain (or ordinary villain, they suppose) would have the decency to leave at least one guard for them to comedically menace. But they don’t encounter a single soul—that is, until they reach a large… room? Opening? The place doesn’t have any sort of real structure to it in this area. The nonsense lining the walls falls away and the space opens up, housing even more complex-looking technology the two can’t be bothered to try and figure out. Sam pauses for a second, glancing around, while Max, behind him and still clinging to the back hem of his jacket, glances around with the air of a trapped animal, tense and almost shivering with trepidation.

On a conveniently-placed sort of raised platform a few feet ahead of them stands a figure shrouded in a red robe decorated ornately with very, very tacky-looking golden stars and moons. Their hands are raised toward a console in front of them, and their sleeves are the wide, floppy sort that droop down. Sam, of course, barely even registers the bizarre garb his eyes are being offended by, and raises his gun with the most confident grip his nondominant paw can muster, yelling, “Stop! Freelance Police, you’re under arrest!”

“Hm, I wasn’t expectin’ ya quite so soon,” They sound genuinely surprised. The figure turns, nudging the hood off their head to expose an alarming reptilian countenance. Yellow eyes, bright green scales, sharp needle-like teeth; they grin widely. “Good to finally see ya. Well, in person, I mean.” 

That’s more than a little confusing. Sam frowns, perplexed, but chooses to reiterate instead of question. “You’re under arrest. Really!”

“Oh, no, I know… except ya won’t arrest me.” They grin a little smugly. “You’re too curious about what I’m doin—”

“No, not really.” Sam lifts his gun.

The lizard seems unbothered, and raises a claw to point at Max. “Not _you_ , no, but… Your fuzzy little friend is.”

“Huh?” Sam glances back as if to confirm with Max, suddenly realizing how stiff the lagomorph’s posture is.

“Well, he’s the one who sees the, ah, the connection or whatever you can call it here. Right?” They grin. Max looks decidedly uncomfortable but Sam doesn’t have time to ask what’s wrong before their bizarre foe is speaking again. “Oh, by the way, before we get started,” a wet lump of fabric is chucked at the dog, “here’s your stupid goddam hat back. Really put a wrench in the works, so, thanks for that.”

Sam looks positively delighted as he drops his gun for a second to snatch the soggy hat out of the air, pausing only to wring it out as best he can with one paw before he plops it back on his head and sighs softly in relief. “Well, thanks for not throwing it away. Anyways, you’re still under arrest.” He leans down and scoops up his revolver again.

“You really _do_ have a one-track mind,” they remark dryly. “Fine, fine, we’ll get back to that…” They take a half-step back, and grin. “After the light show, that is.”

“Light sho—” Sam starts, baffled, before the lizard-creature throws a switch hidden behind them, and suddenly the lights go out. It’s pitch-black but only for a brief moment; the raised platform suddenly glows. Their villain stands in the center of a glowing set of runes on the floor, ringed around them, and their robes begin to billow ominously. “Oh, great,” The dog huffs. “Another charlatan. If _this_ goof starts talking about Prismatology _too_ , I’m out.”

The joke doesn’t earn any kind of reaction from Max.

Sam turns to look at him again, as the glowing lizard-sorcerer-whatever rises hire. Flashes of light delineate the dog’s form in shadow as he stands over his partner, brows creasing in concern. “Little buddy?”

Max stares up at him in an alarming display of abject terror.

“Aren’t you going to answer him this time?” Their opponent yells, and Sam whirls around like he’d forgotten the intense flashing going on above their heads now. It looks almost like a rave in the sky, though the colours are quickly coalescing and settling on a bright, bright yellowy white. Almost like…

“ _This_ time?” Sam echoes, confused. A bolt of energy lances to the ground right in front of him the second his jaw shuts again, and he yelps, springing backward and dragging Max with him. His fur crackles with the energy and he stares, wide-eyed, at the scorch-mark forming on the ground. Max’s paw tightens into a fist around the back of his suitjacket but he doesn’t notice, instead lifting his gun and firing haphazardly at the ring of light. 

“Not gonna work, Fido,” they yell down. “You’d be better off just leaving, unless you _wanna_ get zapped again.” A smile enters their voice. “But I hope you brought an umbrella… And some rubber shoes.”

“Oh, god, no,” Max breathes, gripping Sam’s suit ever tighter, and now the dog notices him. “Sam,” he says frantically, “we can’t go out there.” 

“Why?” Sam looks between his partner and the glowing light, lifting his cast to shield his eyes. It only seems to be getting brighter; a loud rumble of thunder positively shakes the whole building. Unnaturally strong and loud enough that Sam can’t hear Max starting to hyperventilate behind him. 

The ring begins to fade, and the sorcerer falls slowly as it does, grinning almost madly. “Ringing any bells?” They ask in an almost triumphant tone.

Sam is starting to get really, really annoyed by whatever the hell they’re playing at. “Not really, no. And despite the pretty light-show, you’re still under arrest, bub.” He takes a step toward the platform, ignoring the static in the air that immediately seems to cling to his fur and clothes unpleasantly.

Now they look confused. “What? How can it not?” They frown. “I’m doing everything just like—” Their eyes flick to Max, and the puzzlement melts away. A knowing grin spreads slowly across their face, entirely ignoring Sam’s approach and the weapon aimed at their head. “You didn’t _tell_ him. Did you?” The lizard-sorcerer’s voice is all too quiet.

“Hands in the air! Or something.” Sam levels his revolver at their head, standing on the platform directly across from them now. He’s not a hundred percent sure they technically have hands. Do lizards have hands? Whatever limb they consider their arms, he wants it in the air. 

They pay him no mind, choosing instead to keep sneering at Max. “What, were you embarrassed? Guilty for once? Couldn’t bear to admit to him what happened—What you did?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sam snaps, not very keen on being ignored. It’s rude and Max has never been the talkative one of the two. Not in a conversational way, anyhow. He glances down at Max. “Are you as confused as I am?”

He’s expecting Max’s usual chipper “moreso!” to answer him, but when he looks down at Max the lagomorph’s glassy-eyed gaze is locked to the sorcerer. “I never woulda figured you’d be embarrassed by somethin’ like that,” they continue as Sam starts to casually wedge himself between their enemy and Max. He has no idea what’s going on that has Max acting so bizarrely, but he doesn’t like it. “After all, you were so _adamant_ about gettin’ him back even the first time, you threw everybody you ever _knew_ under the bus! Right?” 

“Max?” Sam asks slowly with a sinking feeling in his gut, “What are they talking about?”

“Wh—I, I don’t know!” Max sputters unconvincingly. If he were capable, he’d have gone pale by now. 

“You didn’t know?” The lizard glances between the two of them, (and Sam wants to be happy about being finally acknowledged, but the situation is too uncomfortable,) then howls with laughter. “Oh, you’re kiddin’! Ya never told him ’bout any of it? I woulda thought you’d _bragged_! After all, it’s somethin’ you two have in common, yeah?” 

Now both of them look baffled. “In… common?” Max tilts up to look at Sam, who’s made more uneasy by the way he’s being stared at. Like Max has never seen him before. For once his partner knows exactly what’s going on and Sam is the clueless one, and it makes his blood feel like ice. This is not a fun role-reversal.

“Ooh, so **_neither_ ** of you talked, interesting, interesting…” 

A shot whizzes past the side of their head. The dog has had enough, he’s tired of the mystery and tired of having a broken arm and just plain _tired_ by this entire debacle. Motivation of this bizarre lizard-creature be damned, he wants this case _over_ with already. “You’re. Under. Arrest.” He repeats through gritted teeth, stalking forward, hiding the weird sort of anxiety stewing in his veins under his usual veneer of professionalism. 

Somehow the sorcerer seems only slightly unnerved by the display; they begin to back away from him to keep an even cushion of distance between them, but continue their obnoxious rambling. “Aren’t you curious about what I did?”

“Hardly.” Sam replies bluntly. “All magic is a sham. It was a pretty little trick, but the fact that you’re here alone—Your plan obviously fell apart, and you’re just trying to scare us off. But we’re not scared of anything.” As if to prove him wrong, another clap of thunder rattles the whole building, lights flashing to life again briefly—the building was struck by lightning. Max screeches, and Sam can’t help but flinch, blinking quickly to get the light-spots out of his vision. 

“Man, how much would it suck if you died again?” The sorcerer seems to be trying a new angle, still directly addressing Sam. “Struck down in a storm, just like you were before? Do you think he’d cope any better this time?”

It all clicks. Sam’s ears shoot up, hat hopping off his head briefly before flopping back down into place like it never left. That’s the through-line. It’s his turn to feel nauseated. Why? Why would someone want to do that? How could they know? He racks his brains for some form of an answer, feeling so very lost and yet, right at the cusp of some bigger epiphany. He glances over to Max, as he almost always does when he realizes his train of thought is missing some much-needed spontaneity, and is startled to realize his partner is standing stiff as a board, still as he’s never seen him before, only movement the trembling of his nose, ear-tips, and clenched fists. “Little buddy?” He asks, shocked, and Max turns to look at him again so terrifyingly slowly. His eyes look hollow and Sam has to restrain himself from scooping Max up and frantically asking what’s wrong—showing a weakness like that in front of an enemy would be quite a bad idea. 

So he decides to just keep talking to the sorcerer. “How… How do you… know all this?” Sam asks suspiciously, one eyebrow raised. Max’s reaction tells him they weren’t lying, but it still doesn’t make any sense.

“What your ‘little buddy’ did,” they point in an accusatory manner to Max, “did, indeed, rectify the schism you two caused over a year earlier, but it still set off a few _ripples_ through the space-time continuum. If you happened to be looking… you saw a lot.” They grin, sharp teeth hooking over their lip. “I just got lucky.”

“What do you mean by ‘looking’?” Sam gives them a puzzled look. 

They roll their eyes. “I’m a _sorcerer_ , buddy, _figure it out_.”

Max finally pipes up, peering around Sam with his hands still clenched in fistfuls of his suitjacket, “Doesn’t figuring out magic kinda ruin it?” 

“Aw, shaddup.” They glower, then throw their arms above their head with a wicked grin again, vanishing in a flash of light that sends Sam blinking and rubbing at his eyes. “Don’t you realize I was only buying for time?” Comes from behind Sam but before he can turn around, something strikes him right on the shoulder of his injured arm, and immediate, white-hot pain splits him, radiating from the shoulder down through his body. He’s vaguely aware of falling over, and entirely unaware of Max screaming, too caught-up in the confusion of agony—it feels like every nerve in his body is on fire. And then it feels like nothing.

* * *

He comes-to an unknowable stretch of time later, a bit achy but surprisingly fine. He’s aware of small hands pawing at his face and shoulders, trying to roll him onto his side or pick him up, and he slowly opens his eyes, a little disoriented. His ears are ringing so loudly he can’t hear anything but he knows that it’s Max, and he’s saying something, frantically peering down at his partner’s face. 

“Ow.” Sam manages, sitting up. The ringing fades but he feels like he’s managed to strain every muscle in his body. 

“Sam!” Max throws himself at the dog, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. 

“What happened?” He lifts his good hand to Max’s back, glancing to his left. The lizard’s tail lies a little ways away, and the lizard themself slightly further, a crumpled heap of tacky-looking robes. He guesses Max must have gone into a fit of rage when he passed out; a shame he missed the spectacle. 

“Lightning.” Max holds him a bit tighter, nearly strangling him, his voice oddly wobbling.

“Huh. Neat. Guess I can add ‘struck by lightning’ to my list of accomplishments.” He struggles to get up, feeling quite stiff. “Are _you_ okay? You _were_ clutching my coattails like a neurotic Victorian child peering around his matron.” 

Max doesn’t answer him, and he decides that’s likely a ‘no’ of some kind, gritting his teeth a little as he hefts his broken arm to balance Max, plucking his revolver from the floor (yet again) with his good paw. He walks a little unsteadily toward the prone figure ahead of him, and thankfully each step gets a little easier.

It’s only when he gets close that he realizes they’re still quite conscious, just immobile for reasons he’d rather not ponder.  “Dammit,” they snarl, coughing. “This isn’t how things were supposed to go.” They glare savagely at the duo, enraged. “You, dog-boy, _you_ were supposed to **die already** so the stupid _rabbit_ would lose his _marbles_ and be an **easy target**.”

“What?” Sam gives them a baffled stare, too exhausted and a little rattled to think properly.

“Aw, jeez, get a _clue_ , Fido!” They yell, exasperated. “Didn’t ya ever think why, exactly, Max would just abandon _everyone else_ from his reality? Huh?”

“Shut up,” Max snaps, suddenly regaining his voice. His face is still buried in Sam’s neck, though.

They grin, more than pleased to have touched a nerve, and decide to press it further. “Oh, no, I think I should go on. I think you should tell your partner just what, exactly, happened.”

“Alright, that’s **enough** ,” Sam interrupts, shoving his gun right in their face. “I’ll shoot if you say one more word.”

“What, don’t you want to know?” They taunt.

And to everyone’s surprise, perhaps even his own on some level, Sam shakes his head. “Not right now. Not from _you_.” He then turns to his partner and his voice is much gentler. “Help me drag this sorry bastard to the station, little pal. Then we’ll go home.” 

Max begrudgingly lets go of him, dropping down to the floor, then grabbing the sorcerer’s ankles. Sam grabs a wrist, and they proceed to drag the lizard back down the stairs up to the platform with extreme prejudice; Sam can’t deny a little sadistic glee at every ‘oof, ow, ouch’ he hears from them. Serves them right for zapping him. His back still feels all sore.

They chuck the bundle of tacky magician aesthetics into the back of their car, and Sam stiff-legs his way to the driver’s seat. It’s raining quite powerfully, but only around the building, and he doesn’t really care about being wet right now. The moment he plunks down in the driver’s seat, though, Max springs into his lap. “Ma-ax,” Sam chides gently, nudging at his partner, “I can’t see when you sit in my lap.”

“I’ll steer,” Max offers with a light touch of desperation, peering into Sam’s eyes with an unspoken _please?_ to the end of his words.

Sam wrestles with himself for a moment before deciding Max can probably drive just as well as he does one-armed like this. “Alright.” He relents, and Max beams up at him, relief flooding his eyes. 

* * *

They skid to a stop in front of the police station, and Sam steps out of the Desoto with Max clinging to him like a koala. The moment he shuts the door, though, the lagomorph hops down to help fetch their prisoner from the back of the car, who they hand off unceremoniously to the officers inside, receiving their usual mildly-unnerved thank-yous from the officers on duty. 

Sam pauses in front of the Desoto for a moment, looking down the street. Max stops, looking up at him, wondering what his partner is even thinking about; he doesn’t have to wonder for long, as Sam turns to him and blurts, “So what was that guy talking about?”

Max freezes. “Oh. Uh.” Sam raises an eyebrow, clearly intrigued, and Max clears his throat. “Well! The guy said we had it in common, right? I guess you did something pretty wild when I—he—got hurt, too.” Sam gives him that confused frown he does, and Max deflates a little, sighing, but plasters his usual grin on his face regardless. “Alright… Fine. You know my You died, and it was _my_ fault—”

“I still doubt that.” Sam interjects quietly.

Max doesn’t acknowledge him. “To make a long story short, while you were demolishing the city, I was busy demolishing all of our friendships in a desperate bid to save you. I may or may not have nearly murdered a guy or two in a failed cultish ritual to save your undying soul or whatever,” Max flaps a hand in feigned dismissal, but it feels robotic and deliberately distracting. “And before that, even, I burnt half the bridges we’d built, so, really, it was more like I ruined the few friendships we had left.” He seems to abruptly sober up, face twitching, staring off into space for a moment. Barely holding himself together. “After **_it_ **… happened, I left my reality because I… there… wasn’t anything to stick around for, after that.” The lagomorph looks down for a moment, conflict in his eyes threatening his false smile.

A silence lapses as Sam takes that information in. Max isn’t looking at him and, subsequently, misses out on quite the face-journey from the dog as he digests all the layers of the narrative he’s been told. And his brain latches on to one detail, one facet of the story that sticks out to his somewhat-twisted mind and makes his stomach feel all fluttery and full of butterflies. Or maybe cockroaches would fit better, given the way the duo are.

“You really would’ve killed someone just to bring me back to life?” Sam asks in an uncharacteristically meek tone, giving Max a wide-eyed stare.

“What, are you **surprised**?” Max asks flippantly despite sweating bullets, eyes now locked to Sam in tense anxiety. He’s trying too hard to seem relaxed; every muscle is stiff despite the way he’s posed. Sam, by contrast, somehow seems entirely at ease with this.

“Well, no, not _exactly_ , but, still,” the large dog shuffles his feet and looks down, away from Max, to hide a childishly giddy grin, “that’s awful sweet, little buddy.” 

That’s a bit of a surprise. Max’s spirits lift. “You think so?”

Sam seems to be thinking, not listening to him, but that’s alright; Max had worried Sam wouldn’t have approved of murdering in his name. After all, he’s scolded Max for it in the past, even if it weren’t directly implied that Max was doing it for Sam. “Max…” His voice is uncharacteristically gentle. Max looks back over and his stomach drops as he sees that furrowed eyebrow. “Is **that** why you’ve been acting so _weird_?” He kneels down to be at Max’s eye level, which is unusual for them. It’s a little weird for Max to not have to crane his neck up to look his partner in the eye but this does seem fittingly intimate.

“What do you mean?” Max chuckles nervously, eternal smile wavering, not sure he’s too keen on where this is headed.

“All these **near-death experiences** ,” he waves his good arm vaguely, “did it remind you of what happened to past-Me?” 

The smile falls and he looks away again. “...Maybe.” He scuffs one foot along the ground. 

“Aw, buddy,” Sam reaches out and pats his partner on the head.

“Don’t ‘aw buddy’ _me_ ,” Max interrupts, though he doesn’t shy away from the head-pats. “Sam, I had to watch you **die**! And it wasn’t even **cool**! And I… I couldn’t… do anything… to stop it…”  He’d been composed at the start but of course that doesn’t hold for long. “...It was _my_ **_fault…_** ” It abruptly hits him that they’re talking about it and now he’s thinking about what happened and all the memories are playing behind his eyes whenever he blinks and—Sam watches tears just spring forth unbidden from Max’s eyes as they glaze over, and he suppresses a sigh, reaching forward to gently wipe them away with one thumb. When Max comes back to reality, Sam is giving him a very strange look, a mixture of surprise and understanding sympathy. He plucks Max up off the floor with one hand and tucks the lagomorph into the crook of his arm as best he can. The cast is really getting in the way. Maybe they should hack it off with a chainsaw tomorrow. 

“It’s alright, Max.” He says gently, wiping yet another tear off the lagomorph’s face with his thumb. 

“You’re not ever gonna **leave** , are you?” He blurts, pawing at Sam’s jacket. 

Sam gives him a bewildered look. “Where would I go if I did?”

That stops him. Max looks down. He hadn’t thought of that; he’d just assumed Sam would find someplace to go, something to do. He’d always figured Sam had _some_ kind of back-up plan, for lack of a better term, but obviously, the dog never even thought of it. 

He continues. “I know I’ve said I’ll always want to be a Freelance Police officer, and that’s still true, but I realized something in that narrow window of time where I was trying to save you. Not you. The other-you. Future-you? You know what I mean.” He shakes his head, having perplexed himself, then carries on with his prior thoughts. “I realized, I don’t want to do that _without_ you. I don’t really want to do _anything_ without you. It wouldn’t be worth it—you’ve always been there. Even if it isn’t ‘really’ you… You’re still Max, to me.” He shrugs like it’s nothing, but Max is staring at him and feeling a mix of very confusing emotions. “Felt **weird** to say it before now, but, I guess it’s not _that_ odd, eh, Max? … Max?”

The lagomorph can’t seem to find the words to say, and just buries his face in Sam’s shirt-collar. Sam smiles slightly and hefts Max a bit closer to him, bouncing him a little to properly shift him into a position that’s easier to hold with one arm. He nuzzles against one of Max’s ears. “Aw, let’s go home, pal.” 

They’d forgotten that, if there was one thing they knew they still shared, and would always have shared, it was having to see the other die. And knowing just what they’d do to avoid that ever happening again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's Finally Done !! i hope y'all enjoyed this. i dont know if this ending is really .. satisfying but i did my best !!  
> it took a while because college is hell, but anyhow, after this ill be posting more one-shots and such. maybe ill end up posting something that goes more in-depth about my take on what happened in Max's universe. i was vague about it here because im not sure if everyone will like my edgy grimdark nonsense-- but if there's interest, ill share !


	11. Epilogue: "I Think..."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> li'l bonus for y'all

The sun is setting most spectacularly over the ocean. The crimefighting duo are relaxing by the water, watching the ongoing Statue of Liberty restorations with a box of takeout sitting between them. Max is sitting on the edge of the concrete railing, swinging his feet in the breeze, and Sam is leaning on that same structure, tie tugged just the faintest bit by the wind. The world is bathed in the gold of a dying day, and after this brief moment of relaxation, the pair will drive home and head to bed for a well-deserved full night’s rest, safe and secure in the knowledge that they, at present, don’t have anyone out for their blood. Well, no one not in jail currently. They’re sure to wake up well-rested and ready for more exciting (but hopefully less harrowing) cases. And sometime soon they’ll take a chainsaw or something to Sam’s cast before he ends up breaking his teeth trying to gnaw it off. 

“Hey, Sam?” Max starts, looking up at the dog.

Sam glances down briefly, then goes back to looking at the horizon. “Hey, what?”

The lagomorph had always thought he would have to take a deep breath, make a dramatic pause or gesture or _something_ , but in the end it slips out completely casually, “I think I love you.”

Sam turns his full attention to his partner now and he can tell from Max’s expression and the slight sweat beading on his brow that he isn’t joking. A slow smile creeps across his face and he’s tempted to tease Max for saying he _‘thinks’_ he loves him but instead he just loops his good arm around his partner and tugs him close, chuckling, “I love you too, little buddy.” 


End file.
